


Weightless Spaces

by knit_wear



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Origin Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-14 16:03:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 39,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20194945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knit_wear/pseuds/knit_wear
Summary: Harley and the Joker have a long history. She comes forward when the Batman takes him down, but in Gotham, nothing is ever what it seems.





	1. The Joker

Weightless Spaces

1\. The Joker

* * *

Harley hadn't slept in days. Not real sleep. A few hours on the couch in her office, or a sleeping pill-induced coma that left her feeling drugged and sluggish the next day didn't really count. She hadn't even tried to sleep the night before when the GCPD announced they'd caught the Joker. She sat up watching the rolling coverage on the news, hoping to catch a glimpse of him, something other than the horrible stills from CCTV cameras. She wanted to see his real face, not the sinister, preening clown.

It started with a bank robbery - of _course,_ it did - and one of those CCTV stills circulating with a headline claiming a villain called the Joker was behind it. Harley had stared hard at the images, trying to find Jack beneath the face paint, but all she could see were the scars. If it weren't for the scars, she would have written it off as a coincidence. A bank robber called the Joker. Okay, a _strong_ coincidence, but how could that deranged-looking man dressed like a clown be Jack?

Then he roped the media into his plot, getting them to do his dirty work by spreading his propaganda as he killed and kidnapped indiscriminately.

Jack had always been too smart for the life he led.

Then he blew up a hospital.

He always did have a flair for the dramatic.

Threatened to burn the whole city to the ground...

He had a history of surprising her in the worst possible ways.

The Joker might not have looked like Jack, but there was a particular... Jack _flavor_ to everything the Joker did. Sneaky, teasing, dark, playful, always testing the boundaries. All of it tasted like Jack. The cruelty, less so, but he'd always hidden that side of himself from Harley, even when she asked him not to. He never wanted her to see the bad side, keeping her at arm's length even if it meant losing her. In the end, that was the choice he'd made. Not a choice between Harley and the job, a choice between Harley and showing her what the job really was. He'd rather lose her than show her. Over and over again.

But she always took him back.

But this. This incarnation of _the Joker_. Not just a criminal but a _domestic terrorist_. This was something completely different from what he'd hidden from her back then.

He was showing her this.

He was showing _everyone_ this.

Eighty-three people were dead, and Harley couldn't help but wonder how much of the blame could be laid at her feet. She had been the last thing tethering him to the earth, and without her, he'd evolved into a force of nature that couldn't be stopped. A force that continued to grow and spread, whipping up chaos and destruction, feeding off fear.

_Limitless._

Harley had always known he could do whatever wanted if he put his mind to it.

Harley rubbed her hands over her face, trying to move past her exhaustion and thoughts of Jack to concentrate on the work in front of her. Ironically, her work was focused on a treatment program for young psychopaths, getting to them early before they started committing anti-social acts. Sitting in her office, far away from Gotham, a year and a half removed from Jack, it only occurred to Harley then how ironic it was that this was the research project she'd chosen over him.

"Dr Quinzel?"

Harley looked up to see one of her PhD candidates had poked their head into her office.

"Hey, Beth, what's up?" Harley forced a smile, but she knew it looked strained.

"I just wanted to make sure you're okay," Beth admitted. "You're from Gotham, and there's all this _wild_ stuff happening there right now."

Harley nodded and forced another smile. "It's pretty wild."

"But they caught him, so it's over now," Beth continued, grinning. "I bet every first-year psych student is gonna jump all over this."

"What do you mean?" Harley frowned.

"Well, the Joker," Beth shrugged. "The guy's obviously insane but what are the chances he'll be institutionalized? _Zero_. Someone is going to use the Joker to build on Dr Klein's criminal justice research, I guarantee it."

"Yeah," Harley agreed faintly.

Insanity. It wasn't obvious, not to Harley because she'd known the man behind the Joker for almost a decade. But to Beth and everyone else, he was a madman. The death penalty didn't exist in New Jersey, so prosecutors would make sure Jack had enough life sentences to keep him locked up until he died - they always did - but it was up to a jury to decide if he was insane.

"Did you see Nathaniel Moon's tweets this morning?" Beth continued eagerly. "He's already saying he'll write the definitive book about the Joker. It's kind of genius since no one knows his name or where he came from or anything. Of _course,_ all the big pop-psych people are gonna try to get access to him."

"Mmhmm," Harley agreed, thinking how bizarre that Jack, her Jack, was about to become the subject of numerous pop psychology books. Psychopath porn for the masses. Books with his face on the cover - which face? - wrapped up under Christmas trees. Eventually, there would be stickers advertising discounts in red stuck to those covers. Some day there would be chapters in textbooks and sections in lesson plans devoted to him.

Beth disappeared down the hall, probably to gossip with her fellow grad students about the Joker, and Harley teepeed her hands in front of her face, trying to decide what to do.

This could be her opportunity to finally _do_ something.

* * *

**A/N: Check out** ** Kaleida's cover of '99 Luftballons' to get yourself in the mood.**

**It may take a few chapters to get going so stick with it!**


	2. The Criminal

Weightless Spaces

2\. The Criminal

* * *

The late shift at the cafe was always dull and a little lonely, but at least it allowed Harley to study. It was a pokey little coffee shop on the edge of campus, populated by caffeine starved students by day, but mostly empty at night. There were never any customers after ten o'clock. Not only did no one need coffee that late at night, but the snow was falling thick and heavy outside, and anyone with any common sense would be bundled up warm in their dorm room.

Harley was a senior at Gotham University, five months away from graduating with a BA in Clinical Psychology. But even with a partial scholarship and a mountain of student loans to cover her out of state tuition, she still needed a part-time job to feed and house herself. Her parents were older and didn't have the money to help out, which meant Harley spent four nights a week covering the coffee shop's late shift.

She had pulled herself up on the counter beside the register, her _Ethics Issues of Psychology_ textbook open in her lap, chewing on the end of her pen as she absorbed the words on the page.

Then the bell on the door jingled as some of those elusive late-night customers arrived.

Harley marked her page and jumped off the counter to grab her apron as two people shuffled into the cafe.

"I'll be right with you," she called over her shoulder, tying her apron as she plastered a smile on her face and turned around. "What can I-"

Standing on the other side of the counter were two men wearing ski masks, and one of them was pointing a pistol at her.

"Oh... _shit_," Harley sputtered, throwing her hands up and stepping back from the register, her eyes trained on the barrel of the gun.

"Open the register!" The robber with the gun ordered, circling the counter to stand beside her while his partner stretched his arms over his head in an exaggerated yawn, then let his arms swing down, snapping his fingers impatiently at nothing in particular. "I said, open the register!"

"Okay, okay," Harley agreed, her hands shaking as she typed in her code. The register popped open, and she stepped back so the robber with the pistol could raid the till while his friend leaned against the counter and cocked his head to the side, eyeing Harley curiously.

"Jack, you wanna fuckin' help me out here?" The one with the pistol complained, attempting to stuff cash from the register into the pockets of his hoodie.

"Ah, calm down, Benny," the one called Jack drawled. His voice was weird and nasal, with an accent Harley couldn't place. Instead of joining in, he folded forward to brace his elbows on the counter and looked up at Harley, waiting for her to give him her attention. She met his eye hesitantly, trying to make out the shape of his face beneath the ski mask. "You got any_ normal_ coffee or ah... just the _fancy_ stuff?" He asked, offering her a sly smirk.

"Are you fuckin' kidding me?" Benny snapped. He'd tucked his gun in the back of his jeans and held up two handfuls of money, gesturing furiously. "Help me out here, man!"

Harley frowned as she looked between the two robbers, some of the fear that had her heart pounding slipping away as she judged them to be terrible at their jobs.

_"Well?_" Jack coaxed, his voice nearly a purr. If Harley didn't know any better, she would have said he was batting his eyelashes at her.

"Um, yeah, we have drip coffee," she replied uncertainly, grabbing a paper cup and reaching for the pot gurgling away on a hot plate.

"Aw, that'd be_ swell_, sweetheart," Jack drawled.

"You're a fuckin' psycho, dude," Benny snapped, but Jack just scoffed and grabbed a handful of one-dollar bills out of the register, stuffing them in his coat pocket before stepping back, apparently happy with his take.

Harley poured out a cup of coffee and popped a lid on, then awkwardly offered it to Jack who accepted it graciously. Then he leaned over the counter again, his attention shifting to Harley's Ethics textbook. He ran a finger over the page, humming thoughtfully, and Harley watched in disbelief as he read the text she'd just highlighted.

"Jack, I swear to fuckin' God," Benny threatened, but Jack ignored him.

"Ethics Issues in Psychology, huh?" Jack asked her slyly, and Harley realized then that he was just messing with his partner, intentionally trying to piss him off. She stopped a definitely-inappropriate-for-the-moment laugh, but Jack didn't miss her lips twitching. His eyes lit up, and even beneath the ski mask, Harley could see his face split into a huge grin, like being able to make her laugh had made his night.

"Yeah," Harley said, struggling not to smile now that he was beaming at her. She felt like they were both in on the joke against Benny. "I have a final in two weeks."

"Oooh," he hummed, sounding impressed. "I bet you could do a lot of damage as an... _unethical_ psychologist."

"That's why they make you study ethics," Harley said coyly. "They indoctrinate you early."

"Mmmm, _indoctrinate_," Jack rolled the word around on his tongue like he was tasting it. "That's a _great_ word."

"Jesus fuckin' Christ, Jack," Benny snapped, zipping up his hoodie as he stomped back around the counter. "You're _such_ an asshole," he huffed, throwing open the door.

"Aww, c'mon, Benny. Don't be like that," Jack cajoled over the sound of the bell jangling. He pulled the wad of dollar bills he'd stolen from the register out of his coat pocket and stuffed them in the tip jar, then lifted a finger to his lips "Shh," he advised Harley with a wink, before spinning around to chase after Benny.

Harley stared after him, bewildered.

* * *

Harley told her friends about the robbery the next day, and they all gasped and swooned appropriately. They were so impressed with how well she was holding up after such a traumatizing event; she was so brave. Harley didn't feel brave so much as confused, especially about why she didn't tell them about Jack, the masked coffee shop robber who'd flirted with her. It would have made a great anecdote - the weirdest robbery _ever_ \- but Harley felt compelled to keep it to herself.

She found her thoughts drifting to Jack now and then over the days that followed. Jack, the charming, flirtatious, lazy criminal. The psych major in her wanted to know more.

The police said there was little to no chance of finding the men who did it. Robberies were so commonplace in Gotham that people would hardly blink twice hearing a cafe on the edge of campus had been robbed of all two-hundred dollars in the register.

A week later, Harley was covering the late shift at the coffee shop again, sitting beside the register with her _Abnormal Psych_ textbook open in her lap. The wind was howling outside, sending snow flurries spiraling past the window as a storm worked its way up. Harley tried to focus on the words on the page instead of the fact that she would be going home to a freezing apartment since she hadn't been able to pay the heating bill that month.

The bell on the door jingled as someone pushed it open, the bell fighting to be heard over the wind outside. Harley marked her place as she slid off the counter, brushing out her apron as she looked up to offer the customer a smile. He was tall and lanky, and _very_ cute_,_ with a messy flop of dark blonde hair that fell in his eyes. He shot her a rakish smirk before looking up at the sandwich board behind her, pursing his lips thoughtfully.

Harley tried not to be too obvious as she stared at him, feeling like she knew him from somewhere. He looked like a student, probably a Philosophy major if the unwashed skinny-jeans-and-Doc-Martens look was anything to go by. Normally, Harley went for lacrosse player types, but she found her hand creeping up to twist a lock of her meticulously straightened blonde hair around her finger as her smile softened for him. She was still a single twenty-one-year-old girl after all, and he was crazy hot even if he did look like he needed a shower.

"What can I get you?" Harley asked, fighting the urge to bat her eyelashes at him.

"Hmm," his gaze swung back to her, his eyes shining. "I don't know much about these... _fancy_ coffees. What d'ya recommend, sweetheart?"

His voice was nasal and weird with an unplaceable accent, and it made the smile drop right off Harley's face. Her hand fell from her hair to her side, her heart thumping against her breastbone as she struggled to find something to say.

_Jack._

He grinned at her, looking delighted by her reaction.

"You don't look so happy to see me, honey," he observed, rocking back on his heels.

"What do you want?" She frowned, finding her voice.

"I already told ya," Jack said coyly, his eyes rolling over her like he was memorizing her for later. "I wanted to find out more about your..._ coffee_."

Harley felt her cheeks get warm under the intensity of his stare, and she folded her arms over her chest defensively, trying to cover up the fact that he was flustering her.

"You wanted to find out more about the coffee?" She shot him a dubious look.

Jack's smirk only grew, like he knew what she was _really _thinking.

Harley narrowed her eyes at him. "I could call the cops," she pointed out.

"You _could_," he agreed, leaning his hip against the counter, casual as anything. "But what's life without a little risk?"

"A little risk?" Harley raised an eyebrow as she rotated around to pour him a cup of coffee.

"_Sooo_," he drawled, and Harley turned back to see he was examining her textbook. "Abnormal psychology, huh? Sounds like heavy stuff."

"It's my favorite class," she shrugged, popping a lid on the coffee cup and handing it to him.

"Oh yeah? Why's that?" Jack flashed her another smirk.

Harley eyed him warily as she fought back a smile. He was _charming,_ and she'd never really met a boy who could really _charm_ her before.

"I like mysteries," she said at length, still cautious. "Murderers, psychopaths, criminals... they have such interesting stories. I want to know what makes them tick."

"You like criminals, huh?" Jack waggled his eyebrows at her, not caring that it was shameless, but Harley held her ground, fighting another smile.

"Yeah," she shrugged, pretending to be unaffected. "That's two-fifty," she added, raising her eyebrows in a challenge. Would the criminal pay for his coffee?

Jack hummed like he was intrigued and pulled a wad of bills out of pocket, holding her gaze as he started to hand them over, then abruptly stuffed it in the tip jar, raising his eyebrows to mimic her challenge.

Harley crossed her arms, finally giving in and letting a smile sneak onto her lips. "You're a bad influence, _Jack_."

"Ohh, she _listens_," Jack cooed, cocking his head to the side as he looked her over again. "You're one smart cookie aren't you...?" He twisted his head to the side, squinting out of one eye like he was on the edge of his seat, waiting for her to tell him her name.

"Harley," she conceded, laughing softly. "My name's Harley."

Jack caught her eye again as he took a big sip of the coffee she'd made him. He pressed his lips together, his eyes rolling back as if he'd never tasted anything so wonderful in all his life.

"Oh, _Harley_... that tastes_ good_," he said, offering one last smirk before he turned and loped out into the snow.

* * *

Over the days that followed, Harley found herself replaying that second encounter with Jack in her head, wondering what the hell had even happened. She should have been scared - he had robbed her place of work after all - even if he_ was_ charming and good looking. He was also obviously not a good guy who did not associate with good people. Harley repeated this line of logic to herself, but she still found herself thinking about him too much.

She had a week until finals, so every spare second she could find was devoted to studying. Harley had every intention of getting into Gotham's Clinical Psychology PhD program, but to do that, she needed to get into a placement program at Gotham General for a year, and to do _that_, Harley needed perfect grades.

She was sitting on the counter at the cafe, struggling to study for her Ethics final as she had all week. Ethics was important - it was true that they drilled it into you early to make it stick - but she found it boring compared to the other courses in her major. When it came to anti-social personalities and pathology and criminology, Harley could consume vast quantities of information easily, but ethics? Ethics was just... _blah_.

Then the bell on the door jingled as someone fought to open it against the snow flurries outside, and Harley's head snapped up.

She fought back a smile.

"Hey, sweetheart," Jack greeted her slyly as he strolled up to the counter. "Got any more of that fancy coffee for me?"

Harley remained where she was on the counter with her legs crossed and her textbook open in her lap, trying to project reproachful even though her lips were threatening to spread into a smile. Then she sighed dramatically, like there was no point fighting it, and slid off the counter to pour him a cup of drip coffee.

"This isn't the fancy stuff, you know," she told him. "It's just normal coffee."

"It_ tastes_ pretty fancy," he said, shooting her a caddish smirk before he looked down at her textbook. "More uh... _criminals_ today?"

"Ethics, actually," she shot back, sending him a pointed look.

He chuckled, his smirk shifting into something a little more mischevious. "Wanna tell me about it?"

"Sure," Harley agreed gamely. "Ethics are the moral principles that govern a person's behavior. So, say if you were gonna rob a _coffee shop,_ you might want to reexamine your ethics."

"Oh, _sure_," he agreed enthusiastically, making a sweeping gesture. "I know what ethics _are,_ but uh, how do they relate to _psychology_?"

Harley sent him a dubious look, knowing he was trying to get her to talk to him so he could flirt with her again.

"It's about applying ethics to the practice of psychology," she explained. "You have a moral duty to respect the rights and dignity of your patients."

Jack squinted owlishly at her. "That sounds kinda obvious, honey," he said. "How'd they write such a big book about it?"

"There's a lot of nuances," Harley sighed. "They present you with as many scenarios as they can, and you discuss how you'd handle them."

"Doesn't sound like the kinda thing you can study for," he mused. "Sounds like the kind of thing you need to, uh... _experience_."

"Well," Harley hesitated because remarkably, she had come to the same conclusion. "The idea is when you get to those experiences, you already have a baseline for how to respond."

"How about this, sweetheart," he set his coffee aside and planted both hands on the counter between them, leaning in. "You give me a scenario, and I'll guess how you're being uh... _indoctrinated_ into handling it."

"Alright," Harley felt a slow grin start to form on her lips. "A lawyer asks you to give his client a psychological evaluation before he appears in court. The client asks you not to release his records, but the attorney wants you to. What do you do?"

Jack pursed his lips and rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. "Hmm... What'd this _client_ do? Kill someone? Steal their Christmas decorations?"

Harley laughed despite herself and Jack beamed openly, thrilled to have made her laugh.

"It doesn't matter what they did," Harley explained gently. "It's not a court-ordered evaluation, so you don't release the records unless they subpoena you."

"Getting a bit lawyerly on me there, honey," he told her, raising his eyebrows. "Give me one a little more uh... _flexible_."

"How about if you're treating a minor for depression and they tell you they have an eating disorder," Harley's hand inched up to her hair, twisting a highlighted lock around her index finger as she spoke. "Their parent, who is paying for the therapy, wants to know what's going on with their kid. Do you tell them about the eating disorder?"

Jack hummed thoughtfully, his forehead creasing as he thought it over. "I'm gonna guess... _no_."

"Why?" Harley grinned.

"I dunno," he smirked rakishly at her. "I just don't like parents."

"Are you sure it's not that parents don't like _you_?" Harley quipped, making Jack laugh throatily. It sent a ripple of excitement rolling up Harley's spine, and she felt herself blush.

"Good luck with all the _books_," he said slyly, pushing away from the counter and picking up his coffee. "I'll come see ya again soon."

"Uh huh," Harley replied warily, watching him back out of the store.

* * *

Jack came back a few days later. Harley was sitting on the counter reading her textbook

"Look who it is," she greeted him drily, jumping up to start on his coffee.

"Happy to see me?" He smirked, planting his hands on the counter and swaying forward as she poured drip coffee from the pot into a disposable cup.

"That depends," Harley shot back, popping a lid on the cup. "Are you here to rob us?"

"Never hit the same joint twice," Jack replied slyly, shooting her a pointed look.

"Is that like, rule number one of the criminal code?" Harley asked, handing him the coffee as he stuffed a wad of bills in the tip jar again. She could feel herself blushing as he grinned at her. _Damnit_.

"_Criminal_. You make it sound so..." He rolled his eyes up, searching for the word, and finally settled on. "_Debauched_."

"Debauched," Harley laughed outright, drawing a more subdued but satisfied smirk from Jack, pleased that he'd gotten her to laugh.

"So... _Harley_," Jack nearly purred her name, making Harley dig her nails into the counter. "What's on the books today, huh?"

"Statistics," she informed him, picking up her heavy textbook and showing him the cover. "It's super boring."

"_Sounds_ pretty boring," he agreed, taking a sip of his coffee before he started backing away. "Pleasure to see you, as always, honey."

Disappointment swept through Harley, but she tried to cover it with a quip. "Robbing any nice coffee shops?"

"Oh nooo," he hissed, smirking mischievously. "This time we're hitting a _bank._"

Harley's eyes widened, unable to tell if he was joking. There was a wicked gleam in his eye, which could have meant he was messing with her, or it could have meant he was telling the truth. She settled for laughing weakly.

"Good luck with that," she said, hopping back up on the counter and returning to her textbook.

"See ya around," Jack tossed over his shoulder as he slipped back out into the snow.

* * *

The next morning, bundled up in a scarf, mittens and a fluffy hat, Harley waited for her turn at the coffee truck on campus. Tuesdays were terrible. Her shift at the cafe always ended late on Mondays and having to get up early for Ethics made her eyes felt like they were about to fall out of her head. She rocked back on her heels, fantasizing about how much better she'd feel after a latte when she caught sight of the front page of a newspaper the person in front of her was reading.

_MASKED MEN ROB GOTHAM CITY BANK_

Harley stared at the front page, her exhaustion forgotten.

"Shit," she whispered.

* * *

Finals were officially over, and Harley was ready to celebrate with her friends. After months of doing nothing but studying and working, she finally had some time for herself to go dancing like her girlfriends were always bugging her about.

The Thirsty Cow was more of a dive bar than a club, but they had a dancefloor and flashing lights, which was good enough for the students of Gotham University. It wasn't like Gotham was known for its nightclubs, and on Friday nights the Thirsty Cow had a DJ who played dubstep - the latest craze - which made the students feel like they were at a club in Ibiza instead of at a pokey dive bar with bad speakers. Harley's friends had been drinking and dancing for a few hours by the time she arrived, and some of them were already acting a little sloppy. They all wore skin-tight mini-dresses and crazy high heels whenever they went out, so Harley did too. She felt a little silly considering her daily wardrobe of skinny jeans and ballet flats, though unlike some of her friends, she never fell over in those too-high heels when she wore them.

The music thundered noisily out of the bar's cheap speakers, the electronic peaks and drops grinding like gears making Harley cringe as she squeezed through the dancefloor to find her friends. They all squealed and pulled her in for hugs when she reached them, and someone ran off to get a tray of shots that tasted like licorice. Harley danced with her friends, feeling like this wasn't exactly what she'd had in mind for celebrating the end of finals, but it was what her friends wanted, so she went along with it too.

Soon it was Harley's turn to get drinks. She pushed through the small crowd to get to the bar, planting her elbows on its sticky surface as she caught the bartender's attention and ordered a round of beers and shots for the group. As the bartender loaded up a tray for her, Harley fished through her wallet for cash, wincing when she realized she only had a few dollars left after this costly round.

"That's an awful lotta drinks," a familiar voice beside her observed.

Harley's head snapped up, her eyes widening when she discovered none other than Jack the Charming Criminal - Charming _Bank Robber_ \- leaning against the bar beside her.

"What are you doing here?" She frowned, but Jack just swayed closer to her, tapping his ear and shooting her a smirk suggesting she needed to get closer too. "I said what are you doing here," she tried again, leaning in.

"_Dennis_ from the coffee shop said you were celebrating with your uh, _basic bitches_," he explained, sounding amused.

Harley was going to reply when the bartender waved a hand at her, holding up his fingers to show her how much she owed, but when she started to hand over the cash, Jack covered her hand with hers.

"Let me get this," he grinned. "I'm feelin' a little _flush_ right now."

"I bet you are," Harley tried to shoot him her most reproachful look, but a smile fought its way onto her lips, ruining the effect. She shoved his hand away anyway and paid the bartender.

"_C'mon,_ lemme buy you a drink." Jack nudged her shoulder with his, grinning knowingly at her like he thought it was funny that she knew he was a bank robber. Harley rolled her eyes but nodded anyway, and Jack got the bartender's attention, pointing to the shots on the tray and holding two fingers up.

Harley watched him talk to the bartender out of the corner of her eye. She'd only ever seen him wearing big winter coats before, but tonight he wore a tee-shirt. He was tall and lanky, with lean arms that the less inhibited side of her brain wanted to touch. Just wrap her hand around his bicep and _squeeze_.

Jack handed her a shot, and they toasted before knocking them back. He made a funny face, cringing and blinking hard.

"What the fuck was that?" He sputtered, making Harley throw her head back and laugh before she leaned in again.

"Sambucca," she told him, letting her lips brush against his ear briefly to tease him just a _little_ bit. "My friends like it."

"Uh huh," he hummed, and then his hand was sliding up her arm, from her elbow to her shoulder, fingering the sleeve of her dress. "And what do _you_ like... _Harley?"_

Harley felt herself get shy suddenly, and she looked up at him from under her eyelashes as she contemplated her reply. But before she could say anything, two arms wrapped around her waist and a bouncing body pressed up against her back.

_"GURRRRLLLLL_, what's taking so long?" Harley's friend Lori slurred, squeezing herself between Harley and Jack.

"Sorry!" Harley called back and chanced a look at Jack, who was squinting at Lori, looking unimpressed as she bounced between them.

Lori whipped around to look at Jack and then back to Harley. "_Oooooh,_" she cooed, grinning slyly. "Come on, you gotta dance with us a little bit longer! Finals are over!"

Harley nodded, feeling disappointment rush through her as she picked up the tray of drinks and started to follow Lori back onto the dancefloor. But then she stopped, set the tray back down, and turned back to Jack, who also looked a little disappointed.

After two shots and a beer, Harley wasn't quite drunk, but she was feeling a little bolder than usual as she shifted closer to Jack until she was almost but not quite pressed up against him. She wrapped her hand around his arm like she'd wanted to before, and leaned in to talk in his ear.

"Don't leave, okay?" she said, pulling back to judge his expression.

A smirk started to grow on his lips as he nodded slowly, and Harley held his gaze for a moment longer before she grabbed the tray and headed after Lori, feeling giddy.

"Holy shit, who was that!" Holli squealed in Harley's ear after they'd done their shots and were dancing again. "He's still looking at you!"

"Just a guy," Harley shouted back evasively.

"Harley!" Another one of her friends, Lizzi, grabbed her arm, dancing aggressively against her. "That hot guy at the bar is staring at you!"

"He looks like one of those dirty philosophy kids!" Added another friend, Kitti. "But ya know, super cute!"

Harley danced with her friends until she finished her beer, shooting glances at the bar now and then to make sure Jack was still there, catching his eye a few times. Once she had an excuse, she pushed her way through the crowd of dancers back to the bar, sidling up to him.

"All danced out?" He asked drily, lifting an amused eyebrow.

"This music is kind of terrible," Harley shrugged, then they both paused as the music turned into a horrible, drawn-out screech before it finally crescendoed and swooped back to a steady thudding again.

"Why are ya here if you hate the music and the drinks?" He smirked at her, leaning a little closer.

"I hate my dress too," Harley replied with a grin, leaning a little closer too.

"Mmm, I don't," he hummed, his eyes rolling over her, making Harley blush. Then he took one of her hands, lacing his fingers through hers, and Harley shot him a coy smile, feeling shy again as he ordered them another round of drinks.

They were shots again, but this time it was whiskey, which went down a lot easier than the cloyingly bitter Sambucca Harley's friends preferred. The whiskey made her feel warm all over and edged some of her shyness away as she moved closer to Jack, her fingers curling around his arm again.

"So, what _do_ you like?" He asked, quirking his eyebrows at her knowingly, and Harley knew he was implying that she liked _him_.

She scoffed even though she couldn't stop grinning. "You're a_ bank robber_," she pointed out emphatically.

"And you're _really_ cute," he replied smoothly, his mouth curling into a smirk.

Harley bit her lip, looking around quickly to gauge the crowd around them. No one was paying attention, no one cared, no one knew who he was. Her eyes slid back up to Jack, who was looking down at her through hooded eyes, and she sucked in a deep breath before stretching up to kiss him.

His hand snuck into her hair, holding the back of her head as they kissed each other hesitantly, chastely testing the waters. Then Harley parted her lips and slipped her tongue in his mouth to touch his, and she felt his chest expand against hers as he inhaled sharply. He untangled his fingers from hers where they were still holding hands, pressing his palm against her lower back to nudge her closer as he deepened the kiss, making Harley's toes curl as arousal started to spread through her.

She accidentally whined into his mouth, and he pulled back abruptly to look down at her. Harley stared back at him, struggling to read the look on his face because for the first time, he wasn't smirking or grinning or teasing her. He looked _serious._

"C'mon," he said, retaking her hand before he turned around and pulled her through the crowd to the end of the bar. There was a dark corner there, away from the group of drinkers and dancers, and they quickly shuffled into it.

Harley's pulse lept when he smoothed her hair back from her face, still gazing down at her through hooded eyes. Then he wrapped both his hands around her waist, turned her around, and shoved her back into the wall, not hard enough to hurt her, but enough to make her breath catch as excitement pulsed through her. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him again, not holding back, and not overthinking it as his hands spread up her back and down again

She didn't know how long they were there kissing for, all she knew was that her body was starting to feel electrified the longer he touched her and kissed her, and more than once she gave in to the urge to press her hips against his even if it was overeager. Her thoughts were undoubtedly getting more eager the longer they made out and pawed at each other, and then finally he made the first move, grabbing her ass and curling his fingers into the fabric of her short dress, nearly sliding underneath it.

Harley hummed weakly and pulled back from him, her lips feeling swollen and her head fuzzy with desire as she looked up at him.

She had had one and a half boyfriends so far, and two one night stands. She wasn't a blushing virgin, but she also didn't regularly bring guys home. But Harley had never made out with a bank robber in a dark corner at a bar before, and there was something strangely _thrilling_ about that. She'd also never felt like she _needed_ to bring someone home this strongly before, or been so _excited_ about the prospect of having someone in her bed like she was about Jack.

"Do you wanna get out of here?" She asked him, trying not to look too hopeful. "I live just down the street."

He laughed softly, almost incredulously, then kissed her quickly. "Yeah, baby... I _really_ do."

* * *

Harley had a studio apartment on the outskirts of campus. She wanted to live alone in her senior year so she wouldn't get distracted by her roommates. It had been a good choice, not just because she got some peace and quiet to study, but because Jack wasn't exactly a normal boyfriend.

After spending that first night together, things sped up pretty quickly. Harley had the whole week off from school after finals, and Jack stayed with her the entire week. They only left the apartment - let alone got dressed - when Harley had to go to the coffee shop to work. Jack complained that she didn't have to work - he still had plenty of money from his share of the bank robbery - but Harley was adamant.

At least she was adamant until classes started again, and her schedule was so packed she felt like she didn't have enough time for Jack. Then she agreed to accept a stack of crisp one hundred dollar bills, still wrapped in a little piece of white paper, enough to cover her expenses for a few months, and he'd beamed down at her as he smoothed her hair back from her face and bent down to kiss her.

Jack called her 'baby' and sat next to her in bed, reading her textbooks while she studied. He told her about where he came from and what had happened to his parents, but he didn't tell her too much about his 'jobs' when he had them, only ever that he was 'going on a job' or 'had a job to do' but never what the job was. Harley didn't question it, because she didn't understand it, and she liked him so much that she told herself it didn't matter as long as he wasn't hurting anyone.

They had sex every spare second they could find, getting better and better at making each other feel good the longer they went out. Harley realized she was in love with Jack after a few months, but when she told him, he looked confused before quickly covering it up and saying he loved her too. She wasn't sure if he meant it, and that moment of confusion still gave her a terrible twisting feeling in her gut, but he wanted to be with her all the time, and he really did make her feel _really_ good, so she didn't question that either.

One of the upsides to Jack was that she never had to introduce him to her friends, which meant Harley no longer had to hang out with her friends, who she realized she didn't even like that much anyway. They stayed home mostly or sometimes went out for drinks, but never really went on 'dates.' That just wasn't Jack's style, and Harley found herself eagerly adapting to his style.

She graduated from Gotham University in June and started the job she'd wanted at Gotham General in July. It was weird having a nine-to-five job while Jack's 'work-life' was a bit more... erratic. He was always around though, unofficially moving in with her though Harley had never been to his place and wasn't sure he'd ever had one. Even as she got to know him better than she even knew herself, he had a lot of mysteries about him. But she liked that about him too.

Harley was always thinking about the future when it came to her career. She knew she wanted to go back to Gotham University to get her PhD, and she knew she wanted to research psychopaths, maybe even write a book about it one day. That was where she saw herself going, but she never thought about her future with Jack. Sometimes she wondered why she didn't; she wondered why she wasn't worried about where he fit into her life as a forensic psychologist writing books and lecturing students. But she was happy with him, and that was all that mattered. She was only twenty-one, _almost_ twenty-two years old that December, and she didn't need to know that her boyfriend would be her husband; she just needed to enjoy the deep connection they had.

A year after they first met, Gotham was covered in snow again, and Harley was applying for PhD programs. Gotham University was her first choice, but she had backup schools to apply for too.

Sometimes Jack would disappear for a day or two, not pick up his phone or reply to her texts, but it was never longer than a day or two when he was on a 'job.'

But that changed in February. He did his usual disappearing act for a couple of days, and Harley wasn't worried. But then a couple of days turned into three days, and then four days, and then five.

Then it was a week.

Then it was a month.

Harley cried and cried as she completed her PhD applications, forced to accept that Jack was probably never coming back, and she might not ever see him again.

But she was wrong.

* * *

**A/N: Aww. Baby Joker & Harley.**


	3. The Victim

Weightless Spaces

3\. The Victim

* * *

Harley took the train down to Gotham, spending the entire three-hour journey staring blindly out the rain-spattered window at the countryside zipping by. First, there were forests, then farmland, then forests again. It all bled together prettily, but Harley's thoughts were consumed with what would happen when she got to Gotham. Once the ball started rolling, there would be no stopping it. Once she sat down with Commissioner Jim Gordon to tell her story, there was no way back.

It had taken three weeks to get a face to face meeting with Gordon. The city was still in chaos, and just as Beth had predicted, there was a waiting list of psychologists wanting to give their opinion and get access to the Joker. With no idea what his real name was or where he'd come from, the GCPD and City Hall were desperate for any information they could get their hands on as they built their case against him. They wanted to charge him as soon as possible - a quick trial, lock him up, throw away the key - which wouldn't be hard with the amount of evidence already publically available. The chances that a court-appointed defense attorney would mount a significant case to protect the Joker were slim.

Harley got off the train at Wayne Tower, her small suitcase rolling behind her as her stiletto heels clipped across the clean floors. She was planning on staying a week, using some vacation time she'd been building up. She could envision Gordon wanting her to tell her story more than once, and she had come prepared.

There was also the matter of her one condition of telling her story - that they allow her to see Jack.

She caught a cab to City Hall, her pulse starting to pick up as she approached the reception desk. They gave her a visitor's pass and showed her up to Commissioner Gordon's office, offering her tea or coffee or water - no thank you to all of those - and led her into a large, messy office that looked as if its owner had been sleeping there lately.

"Dr Quinzel," the man behind the desk, Jim Gordon, stood and offered her his hand. He looked exhausted, Harley thought, even his mustache seemed to be drooping.

"Commissioner Gordon," she gave him a tight smile as she shook his hand and took a seat. "Thank you for agreeing to see me."

"I'm sorry it took so long," he sighed, folding his hands together on his desk. "You can imagine we've been getting a lot of... interest in the Joker."

There was a quick knock on the door, but before Gordon had a chance to reply, it flew open. A middle-aged woman with an Egyptian-style black bob and a red slick of lipstick marched in, slamming the door shut behind her as she shot Harley a smirk.

"We've had all _kinds_ of folks coming out of the woodwork since we caught the clown," she said, holding out her hand to Harley. "Janice Porter, acting DA."

"Hello," Harley said politely, taking her hand and glancing at Gordon who had pursed his lips, not looking particularly happy about Porter's decision to join them.

"My assistant's been vetting the _professionals_ who've been coming in," Porter continued, lowering herself into the other chair facing Gordon's desk. Harley looked her over quickly. Stylish, not very attractive, expensive suit, flashy high heels. "But you're the real deal, aren't you Dr Quinzel?" Porter continued with a sly grin.

"Janice means we've had interest from several psychologists wanting to give their opinion on the Joker," Gordon corrected, shooting Porter an annoyed look before turning his attention back to Harley.

"I can imagine," Harley said, forcing a smile that felt more like a grimace.

"They _all_ wanna talk to him," Porter sighed, rolling her eyes. "We let a few of them have a crack at him, but it's always the same story. He leads them in circles with that silver tongue of his until he gets bored. Most of them come out of it shaking like leaves, but you..." She narrowed her eyes at Harley. "You're an expert on this kind of criminal aren't you?"

"You could say that," Harley nodded, folding her hands together in her lap. _Oh, _the irony.

"So," Porter continued gamely. "What kind of insight can you give us from afar?"

Harley looked down at her hands, considering her answer. There was no way back from here.

"I'm not here in a professional capacity," Harley said slowly, taking a deep breath to brace herself before she looked up at Gordon. "I... knew him."

The silence that followed felt like a lead weight, crushing Harley into her chair as Porter and Gordon frowned at her, confused.

"You... knew him?" Gordon finally said, leaning forward. "As in you know who the Joker is?"

Harley nodded slowly, and Porter let out a long, low whistle.

"I did not see that coming," she chuckled, recrossing her legs as she narrowed her eyes at Harley. "In what capacity?"

"We were..." Harley closed her eyes, steeling herself. "In a relationship."

This silence was even more oppressive, longer, and drawn out as Gordon and Porter tried to understand in their own ways what this meant. Harley understood. They thought of the Joker as inhuman. The idea that he could have been in a relationship with another person, let alone a normal person, let alone a respected professional was entirely beyond their comprehension.

"I met him ten years ago," Harley continued, her mouth curling into a bitter smile. "I was twenty-one and a senior at Gotham University. I met him in a coffee shop." She looked up at Gordon, trying to gauge his reaction to this information.

Gordon floundered for a moment, blinking hard as he sat back in his chair then leaned forward again.

"You'll have to excuse us. This is just a bit shocking to hear because..." he hesitated, pursing his lips. "Because we've had nothing substantial on him yet. It's like he appeared out of thin air."

"When did you last have contact with him?" Porter asked quickly, and when Harley looked at her, she saw two things in Porter's eyes. Judgment and ambition.

Harley licked her lips, taking another deep breath as she remembered that last night. That last terrible, awful night. "About eighteen months ago," she said quietly.

"Uh huh," Porter narrowed her eyes. "And why are you only coming forward now?"

"I was..." Harley sucked in a breath and released it slowly, meeting Porter's eyes. "Because I was in love with him. He made me think he loved me too. He manipulated me for... _years_. And trust me, I'm well aware of the irony of the situation."

"I bet he was too," Gordon jumped in sympathetically. "Everything is one big joke to him."

Harley covered her mouth with her hand, turning her face away as her eyes started to fill with tears.

"Dr Quinzel," Gordon said gently. "I understand this is hard for you, but you shouldn't feel guilty. He's the most manipulative bastard I've ever met. It does not surprise me in the least that he chose you to be his victim."

_Victim._

"Thank you," Harley said, releasing a shaky breath. "But now it's time for me to help where I can."

"It's incredibly brave of you to come forward," Gordon told her, offering her a supportive smile. "Let's start with something simple. Can you tell us his name? His real name?"

"It's Jack," Harley said slowly, lifting her eyes to meet Gordon's. The ball was rolling. There was no stopping it now. "Jack Napier."

* * *

**A/N: I could probably author note every single chapter with 'Poor Harley :('**


	4. The Con Man

**A/N: Recommended listening: Portishead - 'Glory Box'**

* * *

Weightless Spaces

4\. The Con Man

* * *

Harley swayed back and forth with the motion of the train carriage, her eyelids drooping as she tried to stay awake. It had been a long day, but as she came to the end of the second year of her PhD, she was finding every day to be a long day. Her specialty was Forensic Psychology, understanding the behavior of murderers and criminals, basically, and the second year of her program was research-heavy. That meant speaking to a lot of murderers, prisoners, and criminals at Blackgate prison as she developed the thesis she would present at the end of her studies.

It could be worse, she reminded herself. The first year had been awful. With her student loans from under-grad building up interest and new loans needing to be taken out to pay for the next phase of her academic career, Harley had had to beg for her job back at the coffee shop. It almost killed her, and she'd come close to giving up when something terrible happened. Her mother died, and Harley got half of the life insurance money.

Losing her mother had been hard, and now Harley had to worry about her father rattling around their family home alone, but the life insurance money made all the difference in the world. Harley paid off some of her student loans, quit the coffee shop, upgraded from her fleabag University District studio to a more dignified and age-appropriate one-bedroom in an arty Downtown neighborhood, and she even spent two months in Europe after her first year of post-grad.

For now, the money was keeping her going, but that would only last for so long.

Overall, things were looking up. At twenty-four, Harley was on track to have the career of her dreams. She had a group of sort-of-friends from school, most of whom were in her research cohort, but none of whom she would call a 'best friend.' Then again, she wouldn't have called any of the girls from college a 'best friend' either. After she started dating Jack, they all melted away, not interesting her like he did, not mattering to her at all.

Jack had been hard to get over, but things were better now. There was even a guy in her cohort, Jim, who broke up with his long term girlfriend a few months earlier and had been shooting Harley a lot of shy smiles lately. She couldn't tell if she was interested, but she told herself to make an effort anyway. It was important to make an effort. There had been other guys she'd made an effort for, but none of them panned out, and she hadn't been particularly disappointed about that.

Harley hopped off the metro at her stop and strolled up the street to her apartment. She lived on the top floor of an old brownstone from the twenties with a permanently out-of-order elevator. Lack of elevator aside, the building was beautiful and rent-controlled. Harley's apartment was all open plan and high ceilings, brick walls and big windows that filled the space with light during the summer. There were even French doors leading out onto the fire escape.

She climbed the five flights of stairs to her apartment, doing some mental math to work out how much writing she needed to do before she could pass out. She pushed open the swinging stairwell door when she reached her floor and turned out into the hallway, then stopped short.

A man was waiting outside her front door with his back to her. He was tall and lanky, with a mop of curly, dark blonde hair, wearing blue jeans and Doc Martens, and smoking a cigarette as he waited.

"Can I help you?" Harley asked cautiously, something uneasy sweeping through her belly as she drew closer.

The man turned around, and Harley's eyes widened. She took two steps back, surprise striking her mute and stupid as she blinked rapidly, trying to accept what she was seeing.

_Jack_.

"Hiya, baby," he drawled, flicking the butt of his cigarette away.

"What the fuck," Harley breathed. "What are you - what - what the fuck!"

Jack sucked his bottom lip between his teeth and rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, making an _'oooh this is awkward'_ face as if it was all a joke.

"What the fuck!" Harley said again, her voice getting louder as shock made way for anger.

"C'mon, baby," he coaxed, taking a few steps toward her, holding his hands out to her. "Let's go inside and talk."

"Go inside and talk!" Harley sputtered, shaking off the pleased shiver that rolled up her spine when he called her '_baby.'_ "You disappear for two and a half years then show up out of the blue wanting to _talk_? What the fuck, Jack! What the -"

Her neighbor's door opened then. Bill, the gay bachelor who had twice fixed Harley's wifi for her, poked his head out into the hallway, looking concerned.

"Is everything okay?" He frowned, looking from Harley down the hall to Jack, who swiftly turned his head away, hiding his face under the guise of raking a hand through his hair.

Harley remembered everything she'd ever known about Jack in a rush then. How she'd met him when he robbed the cafe. How he'd robbed a bank and always had 'jobs.' Jack was a criminal. She should call the police or tell Bill to call the police. She contemplated it for a moment, almost wishing she would but knowing she wouldn't.

Instead, she turned to Bill and offered him a tight smile.

"It's alright, Bill," she told him. "Just a misunderstanding."

She gave Bill one more smile before she hurried down the hall to Jack. He shot her an amused look as she fumbled with her keys and glared at him over her shoulder. When she pushed the door open and reached for the light, Jack strolled in behind her, squeezing his hands into the front pockets of his jeans as he waited for her to close and lock the door. Harley took a minute to regain her composure before she finally turned to face him.

Two and a half years had changed him. He looked broader now, his arms ropier and leaner, his eyes a little bit keener. He still presented as disheveled and unwashed, but there was something more intentional about it now, whereas before it had been careless. He wasn't a kid anymore, Harley realized, and neither was she.

She sucked in a deep breath to prepare herself. "What is going on? Why are you here?"

He pursed his lips and rolled his eyes to the side thoughtfully, and then his mouth twitched like he thought of something funny before his expression shifted to serious, and he met her eye again. "I need a place to lay low," he said.

"What the hell does that mean?" Harley demanded, bewildered. Before he could respond, she pivoted left into the kitchen and threw her bag on the counter before retrieving a half-empty bottle of wine from the fridge. She could feel him watching as she grabbed herself a wine glass off the sink and filled it up until it was almost over-flowing, and then after a moment's pause, grabbed a second glass for him and did the same.

Armed with two glasses of wine, Harley turned to face him again. "What is going on and why are you here?" She demanded, shoving one of the glasses into his hand.

He looked down at the wine glass like he was confused, then shrugged and knocked back a mouthful.

"Uh... like I _said_," he said, smacking his lips. "I need to lay low."

"I need a little more to go than that, Jack," Harley replied coldly, leaning against the oven as she took a long and much-needed sip of wine.

Instead of answering, Jack looked Harley over, taking in her ballet flats, her skinny jeans, her billowy blouse, her blonde hair hanging in long, loose waves well past her shoulders. Harley remembered what her hair had looked like the last time he saw her. She kept it shorter and used to flat iron it to death, getting it highlighted whenever she could afford it.

"You're lookin' real good, baby," he said slowly, then frowned and turned away from her, tossing back some more wine as he made his way into her living room and fell down on the couch, making himself at home.

Harley lingered in the kitchen, leaning against the oven as she tried to keep it together. He looked really good too, but she needed to be more concerned with the criminal-laying-low element of the situation. She had a litany of questions burning on her tongue, namely why he'd disappeared on her. She huffed through her teeth, drank some wine, and pushed away from the oven to join him on the couch.

"Why do you need to lay low?" She asked pointedly, cutting him off before he could say anything else about how she looked or call her 'baby' again.

"I kinda... pissed someone off," he admitted, smirking slyly, then chuckling when he saw Harley's unimpressed face.

"What kind of someone?" She lifted her chin, projecting disdain as best she could, but he just kept chuckling like he could see right through it. Harley stood up, glaring at him. "Alright, get the fuck out," she snapped.

"Ah, come on, baby," he cooed, patting the sofa beside him. "I'll tell ya, I promise. Just sit down."

Harley ground her teeth as she lowered herself back down onto the couch.

"I pissed someone off," he said again, waving his hand flippantly. "And now they wanna kill me, but only because they don't know the whole story."

Harley stared at him, bemused and alarmed.

"So... in like a _week_," he continued calmly, speaking almost melodically to appease her. "Things are gonna pan out just like they're supposed to, and I'll be golden. I just need somewhere to hide for a week."

Harley's throat felt tight. He hadn't told her anything of substance about who he'd pissed or what he'd done, but she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

"Why are you coming to me?" She said quietly. "Why _me?_"

He leveled her with a heavy look, and Harley could see then that something was very different in his eyes. They weren't so playful as she remembered. There was something almost... _feral _there.

"Look... _Harley,_" he spread his hands as he held her gaze, his expression grim. "You're all I got, baby."

Harley looked away, feeling tears start to sting the backs of her eyes. How could she be all he had after he'd just up and disappeared on her? It made her feel like he'd been carrying her around the whole time, and something about that thought was absolutely thrilling but horrendously confusing.

"How is that possible?" She asked, staring into her wine glass, overcoming the tearfulness.

"Ah, you know," he shrugged and planted his elbow on the back of the couch, his eyes sweeping over her. "I'm not really a _people_ person. Everyone else I know will fuck me over so uh, it's this or nothing."

Harley understood what he was saying. She existed outside of his criminal orbit, so no one would ever think to look for him with her. He was also giving her an ultimatum: let me stay or know I'll get killed. It was an unfair choice, not one she could really make.

"Fine," she said, sounding tired. She was exhausted, mentally an emotionally.

"Aww, baby," his face lit up like the sun, and he leaned forward, beaming at her. "You always take care of me."

Harley frowned at him, still uncertain, trying to envision what having him there for a week would be like, how she would exist near him. She wanted some answers, specifically about their past, but she couldn't bring herself to ask them tonight. So she stood up again and crossed the room to the writing desk beside the French doors that led out to the fire escape. She could feel Jack watching her as she pulled open a drawer and rooted around inside, then came back to the couch and turned on the TV, trying to ignore him as a re-run of a 1970s sitcom blinked on.

"Ohhh," he hummed, sounding intrigued as he watched Harley lay a cigarette paper on her knee and open a little baggie half-filled with brown-green buds. "Party time?"

She sent him a withering look. "It's to help me sleep."

"I thought that stuff didn't agree with you?" He raised an eyebrow as he watched her roll a joint, and Harley shot him another dirty look for acting as if he knew her. As if he _knew_ things about her like why she didn't smoke pot. She had planned to keep her mouth shut and ignore him, but he was still watching her, wanting her to say something, so once she'd licked the paper and had the joint squeezed between her first two fingers, she turned to look at him.

"That was before I went to Amsterdam," she explained cooly, accepting the lighter he handed her. "And discovered hash."

"Amsterdam, huh," he hummed, his bottom lip jutting out thoughtfully. "Why'd ya go there?"

Harley scoffed as she lit the joint and took a drag off it. "To see the world," she replied sarcastically, exhaling a plume of smoke out of the corner of her mouth.

"See any place else?" He asked, still watching her carefully.

"London, Paris, Rome," Harley said slowly, taking another drag. It helped calm her down, a soothing hum drowning out the urge to scream and cry and demand answers. "Venice, Prague, Budapest, Berlin... Barcelona."

"Wow," he sounded reluctantly impressed. "How'd you afford that?"

Harley narrowed her eyes as she offered him the joint.

"My mother died," she said coldly. "My dad gave me half of the life insurance money."

"Ooh," he cringed as he took a drag off the joint. "I'm sorry, baby."

Harley shrugged and slumped back into the couch cushions, now feeling suitably stoned and less concerned about him. She stared blindly at the TV, trying to focus on the bald man on the screen having a silly argument with his overly-made up TV wife instead of Jack sitting beside her on the couch. They finished the joint together, and he got quiet too, slumping into the cushions though Harley could feel him glancing at her occasionally. She tried not to care.

When the re-run finished, Harley stood up and went to bed without speaking to him, locking her door behind her.

* * *

In the morning, Harley discovered Jack sleeping on the couch, his Doc Martens kicked off, his tee-shirt on the floor, both arms covering his face to block out the sunlight streaming in through the windows. Harley took one look at his very _firm _looking chest and stomach and promptly sped up her morning routine so she was out the door ten minutes later.

She loitered at school, grading papers and inputting data and working on her thesis since she wouldn't be able to do any of that home. She stayed until she was so hungry she had no choice but to go home, dreading what she'd find there.

What she found was Jack on the couch, watching re-runs of another old sit-com, a grease-stained pizza box sitting closed on the coffee table beside Harley's drug paraganglia.

He looked up when she pushed the door closed behind her, offering her a sly smile as she dropped her bag on the counter and edged closer to him.

"Pizza?" He offered, gesturing to the box. Then he held up a joint and waved it at her. "_Druuuuugs?_"

"So that's how this is going to go," Harley said, lowering herself onto the couch, thinking that maybe she could deal with him being around for another five nights if she was stoned the whole time.

He'd had the decency to put his shirt back on, but his Docs were in the same place they'd been when she got up that morning. She noticed his hair was wet, which meant he'd had a shower. She imagined him rattling around her apartment all day and felt a little bad for him. He was always so full of energy; it was practically bursting out of him in every movement and gesture he made.

"How's what gonna go?" He squinted at her owlishly.

"Nothing," she muttered, taking the joint off him and placing it between her lips.

"Ya know... I didn't _want_ to leave," he said suddenly, his voice low.

Harley's eyes darted over to him, her heart suddenly slamming against her breastbone. His expression was grave, his dark eyes serious as he studied her face.

"Some... things happened," he explained, his lip curling a little. "I didn't want you caught up in it."

"So you just disappeared?" Harley replied incredulously. "You just took off without telling me?"

He sucked his bottom lip between his teeth and hummed unhappily before lifting his eyes to hers again.

"You didn't know what was going on," he said at length, holding her gaze. "Baby, I didn't _want_ you to know."

Harley suddenly felt like she was going to burst into tears, and she had to look away, focusing her energy on lighting the splif so she wouldn't have to feel her feelings.

"I was just a stupid kid," he continued bitterly, even as Harley refused to look at him. "Baby... I didn't know what to _do_ with someone like you."

"Someone like _me?"_ Harley frowned, glancing at him as she took a drag off the joint and handed it to him.

His head tipped to the side, a crooked smirk lifting the corner of his mouth. Then he picked her hand up off the couch and ran his thumb over her palm.

"Someone _good_," he explained quietly, and Harley had to pull her hand back and look away again so she wouldn't cry.

* * *

Harley was pretty sure that was the closest she was going to get to an apology from Jack. The next morning she repeated her routine of sneaking out past him and trying not to notice how nice he looked without his shirt on, and spent the day attempting to focus on work instead of the fact that her college boyfriend, Jack the Charming Criminal, was waiting for her at home. She worked late again, furiously typing out her research notes, which she'd normally do at home. But she knew she wouldn't get anything done there with him there... _lingering_.

There were three weeks until the summer break started, which meant Harley's workload would decrease massively without the pressure of school work. She would spend the summer picking up shifts at Arkham Asylum to help with a research project they were conducting on their psychopathic inmates. Still, sixteen hours of work a week compared to sixty was practically a vacation.

Jack was on the couch when she got home, this time offering her Chinese food and drugs which she accepted. It seemed he'd concluded that keeping her stoned and subdued in his presence was the best way to deal with this brief co-habitation period. That was fine with Harley.

"Ya know... I was_ eleven_ the first time I smoked pot," he drawled as Harley exhaled a plume of smoke, her eyes widening.

"Eleven?" She repeated incredulously.

He shrugged blithely. "Bad influences are everywhere, baby."

Harley frowned, remembering what he'd told her about himself. Mother took off before he could remember her. Father was a drunk and disappeared when he was still a kid. Foster care didn't work out so, like so many kids in Gotham, he ended up on the street, fending for himself. Harley had never thought to ask what 'fending for himself' actually meant when she was twenty-one or twenty-two years old. How did you feel like you knew a person better than you knew yourself and not know things like that?

"So, when you used to have 'jobs,'" she started slowly. "What were you doing?"

He narrowed his eyes at her and ran his tongue over his teeth, contemplating his answer.

"Well," he said at length, still eyeing her warily. "Mostly selling weed or doing other odd jobs. That's the only way to survive when you're a kid on your own."

"Odd jobs," Harley said slowly, lifting her eyes to meet his. "Is that what got you in trouble? So you had to leave?"

He gave a raspy little chuckle and shot her an affectionate smirk.

"Nah," he sighed, and rolled his eyes up to the ceiling as he smoked thoughtfully. "Got in over my head in some... heroin shit." He shook his head. "Fucking idiot."

_"Heroin_ shit?" Harley repeated, her eyes widening, and he nodded slowly to confirm.

"See why I didn't want you to know about it, baby?" He continued drolly. "Smack dealer isn't an ideal boyfriend for a nice girl like you."

"Right," Harley said softly, unsure where this left them. Her eyes darted back up to his. "And now? Is it still odd jobs and pot?"

"Hmmm," he sang, his voice low and gravelly as he handed her the joint back. "Not quite."

"Heroin?" Harley asked, refusing to relent.

"No more drugs," he shook his head, an ironic smile twisting his lips — a secret.

"So what do you do now?" Harley pushed.

"Baby," His tongue snaked out to lick his bottom lip as he cocked his head to the side and fixed her with a grim look. "I'm not gonna tell you, and you don't wanna know."

Harley nodded slowly, realizing that actually, she really didn't want to know.

* * *

Harley couldn't justify three nights in a row of take out, so she left school at a reasonable hour and stopped at the grocery store before making her way home for her fourth night of temporary cohabitation with Jack.

When she got home, he was out on the fire escape, smoking a cigarette with his head flopped back against the wall, shirtless with wet hair like he'd had another shower. As she got set up in the kitchen, Harley realized he'd been wearing the same clothes for four full days at least, and shuffled out to the fire escape to offer to wash them for him if he wanted.

He smirked up at her.

"Mmm, you always look after me, baby," he hummed, and something about the tone of his voice made a shiver roll across Harley's shoulders.

"It's okay," she shrugged it off. "I have some stuff to wash too."

So, while her bolognese sauce cooked down, Harley took a load of laundry including his tee-shirt and socks down to the laundry room then hurried back upstairs. She got a little bit of work done on her laptop, stirred the sauce and put the pasta on, then dodged back downstairs to grab her laundry, and returned to the apartment to hang it up.

They sat on the couch eating in silence, Jack annoyingly shirtless and attractive, then shared a joint before Harley went to bed.

But Harley didn't find it easy to fall asleep. She felt like there was a tension_ hovering_ in the apartment, telling her to go back out to him or invite him to join her in her bed. That was a terrible idea, obviously. She couldn't just forgive him disappearing on her for two and a half years, only to pop up claiming he needed somewhere to hide out and welcome him back in her bed.

She could not do that.

* * *

On the fifth night, Harley stayed as late at school as she reasonably could, delving into her research to distract herself.

When she got home, Jack was on the couch, greeting her with an affable hello before they ate leftovers from the night before. He slyly asked her about school, and she told him what she was working on, and unlike most people she explained her work to, Harley actually felt like he understood what she was talking about.

She'd forgotten how smart he was. It was part of what she'd always liked about him so much. The cocky street rat kid who was too smart for the world he'd grown up in. Too smart to be a pot dealer doing odd jobs for God only knew who. He was a con man at heart, which wasn't much better than a drug dealer but Harley supposed it was still an improvement. She'd sometimes fantasized about what would have happened to him if his parents had been boring suburban types like hers. Would he have utilized his brains? Or become a criminal all the same?

It did seem to suit him.

They shared a joint, and this time as Harley made her way to bed, she could feel herself... _lingering_. She got changed into her pajamas, a matching shorts and tank top set, but instead of getting into bed, she spun on her heel and marched back out to the living room.

Jack looked up when she appeared again, his eyebrows lifting as he looked her over, his eyes lingering on her legs.

He always used to tell her she had great legs.

Harley couldn't remember why she was there, but her hand snuck up to twist a section of hair around her finger, an old flirty habit she'd long since abandoned as an adult. She tried to think of something to say as he waited for her to do something, but she couldn't come up with anything.

So she abandoned ship, turning and fleeing back to the bedroom like a coward.

* * *

Harley couldn't concentrate at work the next day. This uncertain, nostalgic weirdness wasn't good for her at all, and she knew she needed to do something about it. But the week with Jack was also almost up, and she didn't know if that meant he would disappear only to return when he needed a place to hide out again or... well, she didn't know what else could happen, but something told her he would inevitably need her help again.

She stopped at the grocery store to get food to make dinner, but when she got home at a reasonable hour, she found her apartment empty.

He was gone.

Again.

Her stomach dropped to her feet as she set the groceries on the counter, realizing that was always how it was going to be. She was annoyed at herself for getting so attached to him in such a small space of time, and for forgiving him so easily. For nearly, _nearly_ inviting him back into her bed.

She squeezed her eyes shut and reached for the fridge door, deciding that wine was in order. _All_ of the wine while she reminded herself how stupid and naive she had been at twenty-one when she met him, and berating herself for being twice as stupid at twenty-four for forgetting everything that had happened. She didn't think of herself as naive anymore, but maybe she was wrong. Or maybe she was just self-destructive, allowing herself to get this twisted up in knots in less than a week, over a man who was...

Through the French doors leading out to the fire escape, Harley could hear the metal bars clanging as someone climbed up the ladder.

Her head snapped up as she watched Jack hop over the railing and land as deftly as a cat. He'd changed his clothes, a different pair of jeans and a new tee-shirt, but the same Doc Martens.

"You're back," she said quietly, setting the wine down on the counter.

"Mmhmm," he smirked, looking pleased with himself as he strolled back into the apartment. "Told ya it'd all work out. Everyone's friends again, _as_ promised."

"So... no one's trying to kill you anymore?" Harley asked woodenly as he closed the distance between them. "But you still came back?"

She saw a ripple of amusement cross his face like she was missing some big, hilarious point as he came to a stop in front of her. Then he cocked his head to the side, his eyes turning serious.

"Course I did, baby," he purred, lifting his hand to smooth back Harley's hair. "How'm I supposed to leave _you_?"

Harley shivered, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, she shivered in pure delight. Then she acted without thinking and threw her arms around him, pulling him down to her. He slung an arm around her waist, kissing her back eagerly, squeezing her close as his hands moved up her back.

He tasted like cigarettes, which she didn't remember being how he tasted, but he still touched her the way he used to. Like he couldn't feel enough of her fast enough. Harley threaded her fingers into his hair to pull it tight, needing to convey the urgency she felt, and he stooped down to pick her up, setting her on the kitchen counter and stepping between her legs as she wrapped them around his waist.

Harley started pawing at his belt, wanting to hurry things up, but he pushed her hand away, urging her to slow down.

"Slow down, baby," he hummed against her lips as his hand snuck under her shirt. "We got all the time in the world..."

* * *

That summer was like a weird, blissful fever dream for Harley. She was working sixteen hours at Arkham, and Jack had 'work' to do that occasionally meant he would disappear for a few days, but he always came back. They had plenty of time to laze around in bed and get to know each other again, though Harley was well aware that there was a lot she didn't know. She rationalized she was safer not knowing, that whatever it was, he was smart enough to handle it, and he didn't want her involved anyway, and there was something a little bit chivalrous about that which she liked.

He was her secret, waiting for her at home to read books with her and make her laugh and make her feel all _kinds _of excellent things when he touched her. She sensed being with her was kind of an escape for him, like the life he led every day was draining and dark, but with her, in her light-filled apartment, he got to have a little brightness in his life. Maybe that was a romantic way of looking at it, but Harley liked to think it was the case.

She fell head over heels for him again, but this time he was the first one to say it when they were hanging out in the living room one day.

"God, I love you, baby," he chuckled after she said something he found especially funny, making her beam and jump into his lap.

For two years, they managed to make this delicate balancing act last.

Then Harley found out something she wished she hadn't.

* * *

**A/N: Please review ;)**


	5. The Terrorist

Weightless Spaces

5\. The Terrorist

* * *

The Joker drummed his fingers on the table, heaving a dramatic sigh as he waited for his lawyer.

He'd always known getting locked up would be boring, which was precisely why he'd never allowed himself to get caught over his many, _many_ years of _not_ being an upstanding citizen. But the Batman... oh, the _Batman_. The yin to the Joker's yang. It was _poetic_ that the Batman had not only been the one to take the Joker down but that he'd taken _himself_ down in the process.

At first, the Joker had been annoyed that Harvey's evil deeds weren't coming to light, but the truth would eventually come out. It always did.

Even if it took the Joker pulling the strings to make it happen.

The steel door opened then and the Joker's lawyer _Donald_ shuffled in with a stack of folders under his arm. Donald was about fifty, obviously single and childless, kind of eccentric in a mad professor sort of way, with wild hair and moth-eaten corduroy jackets, and _terrified_ of his client. The Joker was also pretty sure he wasn't a great lawyer, but that hardly mattered. They were going to throw the heaviest book at him possible no matter what happened. If he wanted to get out of there, he'd have to do it himself.

He was working on something, but it wasn't time yet. For now, he was still learning the inner workings of Blackgate prison. It was a _fortress, _but the Joker was sure he could make something work_. _He wasn't the type for _life long_ incarceration.

"Hello," Donald nodded nervously, taking a seat across from him and letting his folders tumble out on the table.

"Heyyyyy, Donald," the Joker purred, planting his elbows on the table as best he could with his hands chained as he offered Donald a malicious smile. "How's tricks?"

"I uh, have some news actually," Donald said, rubbing his ear and frowning.

The Joker's eyebrows raised appraisingly. Over the three or four weeks he'd been kept at Blackgate he'd met up with Donald a handful times, and each time it had been obvious the meetings were to tick boxes for the sake of due process. This was the first time he'd come bearing folders or information.

"Sounds _juicy_," the Joker drawled, shifting to slouch in his chair, watching as Donald opened a folder and stared down at the page nervously.

"You could say that," Donald said hesitantly. "Mr Napier."

The Joker ran his tongue over the scar splitting his bottom lip, doing some quick calculations. His real name, huh. That could only come from a few sources. He scrolled through a few names, scratching each of them off the list as dead or disappeared as he tried to avoid the glaringly obvious fact that Donald could have only learned this name from one person.

_Shit._

He pursed his lips, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling as an unfamiliar feeling swept over him. _Betrayal._

"A Doctor, uh... Harleen Quinzel has been working with the DA," Donald continued nervously, fumbling with something in the folder. "She's given them a lot of... practical information about your history. Nothing incriminating, just name, date of birth... some, um, insight into your history for the court psychologist."

So, she was telling them all his _secrets. _All _their _secrets, which was almost assuredly worse.

_"Insight?"_ the Joker snarled, prodding the scars inside his cheek with his tongue as he glowered at Donald.

Donald visibly shuddered, his fear palatable as he pulled a picture out of the folder with shaking hands and laid it on the table between them.

"Uh, can you confirm you know her?" He asked, awkwardly. "For my records? We can contest it if you..."

The Joker stopped listening as he was confronted with an image of Harley. It was a recent picture, a professional portrait taken since he'd last seen her. Her hair was a little shorter than she'd worn it before, still wavy and back to her natural honey color instead of the platinum blonde dye job she'd had when he last saw her. She had bangs now too, blunt and heavy, almost hiding her big blue eyes which glittered as she beamed at the camera.

His throat felt tight as he stared at the picture, and he lifted his hands to scrub them over his face, forgetting about the handcuffs binding him to the table. He was forced to fold forward so he could rub his palms over his eyes, trying to massage away the tightness now spreading through him. It was making his shoulders tense, making his intestines twist, making his heart constrict. It was painful, and for the first time in a really, _really_ long time, the Joker thought about that last terrible, awful night when she'd left for good.

"_Fuck_," he growled into his hands.

"Uh, do you want some water, Mr Napier or..." Donald floundered when the Joker lifted his head to glare at him, promptly shutting him up. Instead, Donald reached for the picture of Harley, but the Joker slapped a hand down on it, and Donald shrank back, babbling nervously about how whatever she'd said was just color for the prosecutors and wouldn't affect the outcome of the case, not really.

"And uh, there's just a few other things," Donald said in a rush. "There's a Dr Jessica Klein from Stanford who got in touch with me yesterday. I guess she's well known for her book..." He fumbled through his bag and produced a hardcover book, sliding it across the desk toward the Joker. The cover said it was called,_ 'Psychosis and Criminal Justice: A Contradiction of Terms and the Effects on our Supposedly Moral Society.'_

The Joker looked between the book and Donald a few times, bewildered.

"I guess she's an activist for mental health reform," Donald frowned, looking at his notes. "She's really against putting uh... troubled? No, um... mentally ill people in jail instead of... institutions where they can get treatment," he rambled, reading off his notes. "Anyway, she got in touch because she wants to consult on your case and testify for you as an expert."

"Wait," the Joker's eyes narrowed as he realized what Donald was saying. "You're telling me this shrink is gonna try to get me locked up in a _nuthouse?_"

"I don't think nuthouse is politically correct," Donald said, blinking rapidly. "But um, she says Arkham would be more appropriate. I looked into it, and they let you go on walks outside, let you smoke whenever you want, private showers and your own cell. It's certainly a better deal than Blackgate."

"Got it," the Joker drawled, his lip curling into a sneer. _This_ was a new low. "So I'll be... _comfier_ there."

"She said to read her book," Donald replied quickly. "I mean it's your trial, so if you're not interested in building a defense I can..."

The Joker fell back in his chair, his head lolling back until he was staring at the ceiling. He was unbearably bored with this conversation, especially when he now had that last night with Harley rattling around his brain and poking him in the chest.

_Both_ of those last nights. It had happened more than once, after all.

_Fuck fuck fuck._

He sat up suddenly, grabbing the book and planting his elbow on top of it before settling in to glare at Donald again.

"Anything else?" he snapped, needing to get back to solitary so he could think about the consequences of Harley tattling on him without _Donald_ interrupting.

"Um, yeah, just one more thing," Donald stammered awkwardly. "The DA's accepted Dr Quinzel's request to visit you so um... she's going to be here the day after tomorrow."

The Joker stared blankly at Donald as another old, forgotten feeling spiraled through him. When he first met Harley, he'd thought of this feeling as what it would be like to have an alien burrow out of your chest like John Hurt in _Alien_. Painful but exciting and pleasurable in a twisted way. There was a good version of it, like when she laughed at his jokes while she stood behind that counter at the coffee shop where he met her, or when she smiled sweetly at him when they were in bed together at her apartment Downtown. That apartment had always been full of light, making it impossible to sleep in late. But why would he want to sleep in when Harley was there beside him?

Then there was the bad version of that feeling, the one he got when she found what he did for a living and was _horrified_ by him. And then that last night outside the club, when she'd finally left him.

That was the feeling coursing through him now.

_Shit._

She'd always welcomed him back before, reluctantly but consistently. Always wanting to look after him, even though he didn't deserve it.

There was no way she'd welcome him back after this, evident in the fact that she was working with the DA.

He felt like covering his face with his hands again, not just because of that shitty old feeling, and not just because he had thought himself _beyond_ shitty feelings, and not just because Donald was sitting there watching him process all of this, making the Joker feel _exposed_. _No_. In two days he would see Harley for the first time in a year and a half, and he would be wearing an orange jumpsuit, unshaven and looking like shit, with a litany of _terrorist _level crimes hanging over his head. There was no hiding from her anymore.

But that had been the whole point, hadn't it? Not to hide in the shadows but to _frolic_ in the daylight? Force the mob and the Batman and Dent and every other corrupt fucker in the city to face themselves. Things picked up steam faster than he'd thought they would, like a divine hurricane wreaking havoc and chaos, engulfing everything in his path, indomitable and _boundless _with nothing to stop him. It had been _glorious._

He almost wanted to refuse to see her, refuse to let her see him like this. He wasn't ashamed of what he'd done, felt no remorse or regret for anything but the _getting caught _part. That was what it was; he didn't want her to see him _caged._

But refusing to see her would make him a coward, and the Joker wasn't afraid of anything. Not even Harley.

At least not anymore.

* * *

**A/N: Insert my usual pleading for comments / reviews / feedback 3**


	6. The Hitman

Weightless Spaces

6\. The Hitman

* * *

Harley woke up with a splitting headache, and she could feel something wet and slick running down the back of her head. She tried to open her eyes, but all she saw was blackness, and that was when she realized there was a hood over her head. Blurry and confused, she tried to lift her hands to touch her head, but she couldn't move her arms, and that was when she realized her hands had been tied behind her back. She tried to speak, to ask what was going on, but there was a gag in her mouth.

Panic crashed over her, clearing up all that blurriness as she tried to think back to the last thing she remembered.

Leaving the psych building late after making a dent in her thesis project. Walking to the metro station, her coat under her arm because it was unusually warm for September. Waiting for the light to change at the crosswalk across the street from the metro. She'd hardly noticed the unmarked white van pull up to the stoplight, her thoughts on the contents of her fridge back home, wondering if Jack would be there since he hadn't come over in a few days. Then the van's door slid open, and two men jumped out.

Harley stood frozen as they stalked toward her, one of them grabbing her arm while the other pulled out a pistol and cracked her over the head with it.

Then darkness.

Now she was awake, but still submerged in darkness, and panic rolled through her all over again, as her throat tightened and it became hard to breathe. She heard herself whimper, but it sounded far away as she started to struggle against her restraints, trying to find freedom.

"Uh oh, she's comin' around," a voice drawled, and then there was the click of a lighter before the smell of cigarettes filled the air. "Poor thing."

"Ah, your goin' soft, Johnny," said another voice.

Harley started to tremble, a hundred different scenarios playing out in her mind's eye as she tried to understand why she'd been kidnapped, and who these two men were. She spent her days interviewing and studying murderers, kidnappers, and criminals, and it was only now, at this moment, that she considered what the victims of her subjects felt.

A sob caught in her throat, confusion and panic taking over as she struggled against her restraints, whining and trying to beg around the gag in her mouth.

"Jesus, I can't watch this," the one called Johnny sighed, making the other one chuckle.

Then the hood was off, and Harley was staring into the face of a man who looked like he'd fallen straight out of central casting for Goodfellas, from his suit to his slicked-back hair to the gold medallion around his neck and the gun holstered at his hip.

He braced his hands on his thighs as he searched her face for a moment, pursing his lips. "Ya promise not to scream?" He asked, shooting her a dubious look.

Harley nodded frantically, blinking hard as she tried to fight back the tears stinging the backs of her eyes.

"Alright then," Johnny nodded and tugged the gag out of her mouth before he stepped back to stand beside his partner, who was smoking behind him.

Harley could feel tears on her cheeks, her mind still racing as she looked around the room. It was a back room with cleaning supplies and shelves packed with bottles of liquor. She looked back at her kidnappers who were eyeing her warily, waiting for her to do something.

"What... what's going on?" She asked, her voice timid.

"Ah Jesus," the second one said. "She's way too cute for Joker."

"Wh-what?" Harley stammered, looking between the two men. "I don't understand."

"Joker owes the boss money," Johnny explained, shooting his partner a warning look. "So uh, you're gonna hang out with us until he pays up."

"What's Joker?" Harley swallowed thickly. "I don't understand."

"What's Joker?" The partner threw back his head and laughed hard. "You gotta be fuckin' with me, sweetheart. Huh? Are ya fuckin' with me?"

"No," Harley said weakly, shrinking back into herself, feeling completely out of her depth. She felt a swell of disgust at herself for being so _weak._

"Jack," Johnny explained patiently, shooting his partner another withering look. "People call him Joker. You didn't know that?"

"No," Harley said meekly as her mind started racing, putting pieces together. Jack owed people - bad people from the looks of it - money, and now she was getting roped into it so he'd pay them back.

A horrible sinking feeling landed heavy in her stomach, and for the first time in the two years since Jack had reappeared in her life, she realized just how little she knew about him.

And she hadn't even asked. She'd never even considered she could get dragged into this part of his life. But here it was, staring her in the face, and she felt like the stupidest woman alive for not seeing how inevitable all of this was.

She could see pity on Johnny's face, and sly amusement on the other one. Harley licked her lips, trying to think of another question to ask, how to get herself out of this.

Then the door opened, and a tanned man with silver hair and an expensive suit stepped in.

Johnny and his partner immediately demurred, and Harley guessed this was the 'boss' Jack had ripped off.

"She doesn't know anything, boss," Johnny said quickly. "She didn't even know the boys call him Joker."

The Boss looked Harley over as a fat tear rolled down her cheek and dripped off her chin, landing in her lap.

"She's _real_ fuckin' cute though," Johnny's partner observed with a smirk. "Way too cute for an asshole like Joker."

"Uh huh," the Boss said drily, ignoring his henchmen in favor of Harley. "You're a nice girl, aren't ya, sweetheart?"

Harley wasn't sure how to respond to that. Usually, she would have found a comment like that demeaning, but at the moment she was too scared to do anything other than blink stupidly at the Boss, hoping maybe he'd take pity on her.

"Christ, look at those big blue eyes," the Boss sighed, looking disappointed before he glanced back at his henchmen. "Gimme a minute with Ms Quinzel, boys."

Johnny and his partner obediently dodged out of the door, closing it behind them and leaving Harley staring at the Boss. He was watching her curiously like he was trying to figure her out. Then he pulled a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his suit jacket and bent forward to dab Harley's face with it, wiping away her tears as she sniffled pathetically.

"I don't know what's going on," she said, watching him refold the handkerchief and tuck it away. "Where's Jack?"

"We were kinda hoping you could tell us," the Boss explained. "But uh, from the looks of you I'd say you ain't got a clue."

"I haven't seen him in three days," Harley replied quickly.

"That sounds about right," the Boss said drily, his eyes drifting off to the side before they landed on Harley again. "I'm Sal, by the way, Sal Maroni."

"Nice to meet you?" Harley tried weakly, making Maroni chuckle incredulously.

"I got some bad news, Ms Quinzel," he sighed, pursing his lips. "Jack didn't finish a hit job for me, but he took my money anyway. Now we can't find him, so, unfortunately, we've had to bring you in as an incentive for him."

"Okay," Harley said slowly. "What happens if he doesn't come back?"

"Well," Maroni shrugged helplessly. "Let's cross that bridge when we get to it. Sound good, sweetheart?"

"Alright," Harley whimpered, knowing that meant they would kill her if Jack didn't show up. Then she thought of something. "What do you mean... a hit job?"

"Mmm... you really don't know anything, do ya," Maroni rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. "Well uh, let's just say, if Mr Falcone needs someone takin' care of, Jack's one of our best."

Harley's eyes widened as she finally... _finally_ realized what she'd been missing. What Jack refused to tell her. What she'd not wanted to know.

"You mean... he kills people...?" And then she thought about the name 'Falcone,' a name most people in Gotham knew. The city was so corrupt that gangsters like Carmine Falcone didn't bother to hide their dealings. She closed her eyes, a sob bubbling up in her throat. "He kills people for the mob?"

"He sure does, sweetheart," Maroni nodded slowly, pity creeping into the line of his mouth. "Like I said, he's one of our best. But he fucked up this time. Left the guy alive. That's what happens when he takes too much time with em'."

Harley felt like her tongue had turned to lead as she stared at Maroni.

"He's cocky fucker," Maroni continued, rolling his eyes. "Can't just shoot em' normal, it's always got a be a fuckin' production with him."

Harley could feel tears streaming down her face again, but she didn't blink, couldn't look away from Maroni as he told her what she'd never wanted to know.

"Then again," Maroni continued, shooting her a sympathetic look. "That's what makes him one of our best."

"Oh my God," Harley whimpered, her lips trembling.

"Why don't I give ya some time for yourself, huh?" Maroni offered, turning to leave. He'd opened the door and was about to step out into the hall on the other side when he turned back to Harley, sighing. "I hope Jack shows up, sweetheart. For your sake."

Maroni left and pushed the door shut behind him with a soft click, and Harley burst into tears.

* * *

A few hours passed at least, maybe more. Harley wasn't sure, but at some point, Johnny came to give her some water and a power bar, which meant perhaps it had been longer than she thought. She tried to ask how long they were going to give Jack before they had to talk about what was going to happen to her, but Johnny only petted her hair and said, "Don't you worry, sweetheart." But that was hardly reassuring.

More time passed, and Harley was left with her thoughts and her fear. Fear of death was at the top of her list, laced up tight with a sense of betrayal she had never experienced before. This was Jack's fault. Jack's fault for getting in bed with the mob and working for Carmine Falcone. Jack's fault for fucking up and not protecting her well enough. Jack's fault for becoming a hitman in the first place.

Why would he _do_ that?

But it was also Harley's fault. Harley's fault for knowing he was a criminal and a con man even if he treated her right. Harley's fault for not asking more questions, not being brave enough to demand the truth. Harley's fault for being stupid enough to be in love with a murderer.

The irony that she spent her days studying murderers was not lost on her. It almost made her want to laugh.

One of her case studies at Blackgate even claimed to work for Falcone. How ludicris was that?

God, Gotham was such a shit hole.

There had always been something a little _wild_ in Jack's eyes since he'd come back. She'd noticed it that first night he'd shown up at her place and wrote it off as growing out of being a kid. But now it made sense. That look in his eye was because he killed people, and if what Maroni said about him 'taking his time' with his victims was true, he was cruel about it. Enjoyed it. There were too many terrible parts of this puzzle to decide which one was worst of all, but knowing Jack enjoyed hurting people was one of the hardest pills to swallow.

Harley knew all about men who liked to hurt people, but she'd never seen a hint of it in him. There had always been something a little dark about him, but he had only ever been gentle toward her.

That brought up a whole new line of questions. If he hid it so well from her, what did that say about their relationship? Psychopaths sometimes had a person in their life they relied on, someone to feed and house them, someone to take care of them. Was that all Harley was to him? Just a naive idiot who hadn't realized that man sleeping in her bed most nights was a killer? She'd always thought her feelings for him were mutual, but maybe he was pretending. That's what psychopaths did to their... _victims._

Could Jack _really _by a psychopath?

_"Love ya, baby,"_ he'd said with a smirk before he kissed her goodbye, just a few days earlier.

No, this was the worst part of this. It could have all been a lie.

The door banged open then, and Jack was marched into the room. Johnny was holding his arms behind his back, struggling to keep him still. Jack had a split lip, and there were dark circles under his eyes, and he was snarling like a wild animal. Then those feral eyes landed on Harley, and some of the ferocity leaked out of him, and he seemed to deflate as she stared at him, bewildered, hurt, angry, betrayed.

He didn't speak; he just stared back at her, his expression blank.

"See," Johnny said, his lip curling. "Told ya, she's safe as houses."

Maroni sauntered into the room then, his hands in his pockets as he looked between Jack and Harley as they tried to figure out what to say to each other.

"You really fucked up this time, Joker," Maroni drawled. "Gettin' a sweet little thing like this tied up in your shit." He shook his head slowly. "If I were her father, I'd teach you some fuckin' manners."

Jack licked his lips. "Baby..." He started to say to Harley.

"It's all here, boss," Johnny's partner stuck his head in the room then. "And Billie says the hit's done too. Bullet to the head in his hospital room. Nice and clean."

"Well that's somethin', isn't it," Maroni drawled, looking unimpressed.

"C'mon, Sal," Jack said imploringly, his eyes narrowing. "I took care of it, and you've got your money back. Let us go."

"You think I'm lettin' you go after this, do ya?" Maroni eyed Jack up warily. "You're too fuckin' cocky, Jack. You're a liability."

Jack ground his teeth, his eyes darting to Harley, who was still staring at him. She realized she was glaring, the betrayal and anger of finally learning the truth blotting out any relief that she might survive the night.

"Then just let her go," Jack tried again, sounding a little desperate.

"You're givin' up that easy, huh?" Maroni lifted a lazy eyebrow. "Just like that? None of your usual bullshit?"

Jack pursed his lips, his eyes rolling out to the side. He glanced at Harley briefly and then looked away just as quickly.

"Ya know what, I don't think a nice girl like her will wanna have anything to do with you after this, Joker," Maroni continued, a cruel smirk slipping onto his face. "In fact, I'm thinkin' that's a pretty good punishment for your fuck up."

Jack's eyes darted back over to Maroni, hopeful.

"I want ten jobs on the house," Maroni continued, his eyes narrowing.

"Done," Jack snapped back, and Maroni nodded to Johnny, who released Jack and pulled a knife from his blazer.

Harley's whole body tensed as Johnny moved around to the back of her chair and cut through the ropes binding her wrists and feet. Then she was free, her shoulders aching as she rolled them forward and rubbed her wrists before getting shakily to her feet. Johnny handed her her purse, and she took it numbly. She couldn't look at Jack, who was standing back, hesitating, so she looked at Maroni instead as he stepped aside, allowing her to leave.

"Thank you," she said softly, and Maroni shook his head before taking one of her hands between his and giving it a comforting pat.

"You look after yourself, okay sweetheart?" He told her, raising his eyebrows appraisingly, and Harley nodded as she stumbled out the door into a hallway with shabby brown carpet.

Her legs were shaky as she staggered down the short hall out into what turned out to be a bar, run down and dirty, exactly the kind of place you'd expect mob thugs to drink at. Harley ignored the looks she got from the patrons as she rushed across the bar and out the front door, the promise of freedom propelling her forward.

She could hear Jack behind her, hurrying to catch up with her. He made it through the door and out onto the street just as she began to speedwalk away.

"Baby! Baby, wait," he called, catching up with her and grabbing her wrist to stop her.

Harley yelped when he touched her, her arms still sore from being tied behind her back for hours on end. She yanked her arm free and glared at him, pleased to see his eyes widen as he backed up a few steps.

"Stay away from me," she snapped.

"Baby, let me explain," he tried again, approaching her more slowly this time, but Harley held up her hand to stop him.

"Explain what, Jack?" She spat. "Explain that you kill people for money? That you work for the _mob_? That apparently, they call you _Joker_ because you like to _take your time_ with your victims?"

"Shit," Jack hissed, raking a hand through his hair as he looked away.

"That's right, Jack - _shit,"_ Harley continued, emotion coloring her words no matter how she tried to fight it back. Her eyes were stinging again. "_Shit,_ how stupid can Harley possibly be," she huffed breathlessly, struggling not to cry.

"Stop it, Harley," Jack growled, moving closer like he was going to try to touch her again. "It's _complicated_."

"It's complicated!" Harley laughed incredulously. "No, _Jack_. It's not complicated. I spend every single day with murderers and psychopaths! You don't get to be a murderer for hire_ and_ my boyfriend!"

His eyes widened then like he hadn't realized that was where this conversation was going, that Harley was ending things. But really, it only hit Harley then too that that was what was happening. A sob got caught in her throat as tears started streaming down her face again.

"Am I just a comfortable bed and warm body to you!" she sobbed. "Here to _look after_ _you_ when you need it? Do you even_ care_ about me?"

"Of course I do, baby!" He rushed forward, trying to wrap his arms around her, struggling to hold her against his chest. But Harley fought him off, pushed him away even as he rambled at her. "Baby, I love you - I _love_ you, I swear. Baby, come on, stop it. Baby, _please... Please _don't do this..."

"No!" Harley screamed, shoving him hard in the chest until he finally stepped back. "Stop calling me that! Get off me!"

He shrank back, his face falling, a lost, hopeless look Harley had never seen on him before taking over.

"Was any of this real?" She demanded, wiping her nose. "Tell me the truth! For once!"

"Of course it was - _is! _Baby, please don't do this..._"_ He tried to get closer again, but Harley staggered back from him.

"Don't touch me," she hissed. "Don't come over anymore. Don't try to talk to me, and don't try to _lay low_ at my place. Just leave me the fuck alone!"

He was blinking rapidly at her, struggling to find something to say. He hadn't even apologized yet, Harley realized, which only solidified her fear that all this time, all these years, she had meant nothing to him, when he had meant everything to her.

"I never want to see you again," she said coldly, her eyes narrowing. She watched his face crumple and saw him open his mouth to speak, but she spun around before she had to hear him. She stormed up the street, wrapping her arms around herself and sobbing as she looked for a cab.

"Baby!" Jack called after her. "Baby, wait..."

But Harley kept going. She left him there in the street and didn't look back.

* * *

**A/N: I actually find this really upsetting :-/**


	7. The Prisoner

Weightless Spaces

7\. The Prisoner

* * *

It was Harley's last day in Gotham. After telling Jim Gordon and Janice Porter her story, she'd told it again for Porter's team of prosecutors, then again to a court psychologist, then one last time in an official deposition a few days later. Her condition for repeatedly putting herself through this trauma was that she be granted permission to see Jack at Blackgate as soon as possible. She wanted to look him in the eye to get some closure, she told them.

They were keeping her name and her story out of the media, but they hadn't managed to keep Jack's real name from the press. It both confused and helped people cope with what had happened to their city. It turned him into a man, not the ethereal monster that was the Joker. It also gave the DA a name to charge him under, even if there were no records of a Jack Napier having ever lived in Gotham. Jack Napier was just as much a ghost as the Joker, appearing out of thin air with only Harley's story to give him some element of corporality to those who heard it.

Harley dressed in her favorite outfit, a tailored navy suit with a nipped-in waist and a silk blouse. This was the suit she wore when she met with new groups of PhD students, or if she needed to get money out of the board, or if she had an important talk to give. She wore the red lipstick she saved for occasions when she needed to make an impression and her highest pair of heels just because she loved them.

She stopped inside a branch of Gotham City Bank to pull out some cash from an account leftover from another time. She didn't use the account anymore, mostly because after leaving Gotham, even seeing the city's name on her credit cards and bank statements made her feel sick.

Then she caught a cab to Blackgate prison, spending the trip bracing herself for what was about to happen.

She didn't know what to expect, but she knew Jack knew she'd been talking.

Blackgate was just as she remembered it, the smell of ammonia immediately taking her back to her years as a grad student. The first time she and her cohort came to Blackgate, twenty-three years old, enthusiastic and idealistic, they'd all needed to get a drink afterward. Similar to med school students dissecting a body for the first time. _Prison_ wasn't a nice place, but Harley and most of her peers gradually acclimatized to the harsh environment. Some gave up though, the reality of spending three days a week talking to criminals and murderers more than they could handle.

Harley was given a visitor's pass and escorted to one of the rooms used by prisoners and their lawyers rather than the usual glass partition with a phone between them used by visitors. She still had friends in high places at Blackgate, and Gordon trusted her too.

She stopped by a bathroom, needing a final moment alone to collect herself. She was nervous. She couldn't imagine he'd appreciate her talking, but then again she wasn't sure she knew Jack at all anymore. It was possible he had snapped, run off the rails - gone _crazy._ But she needed to speak to him, to find out who he was before she could decide on anything.

Her heart started to pound relentlessly as she waited for the guards to unlock the door to the room where Jack was waiting for her. It only got worse as one of the guards walked her in, her pulse leaping in her throat, choking her as the door closed behind her and the guard stood off to the side, hovering in case Jack tried something.

Jack was sitting at a square metal table, his hands chained down, his feet chained too. He looked terrible. His eyes were red-rimmed and hollow, his skin sallow from not seeing daylight in a month, his hair lank and greasy. The orange jumpsuit made it all worse, shaming him, making his captivity glaringly obvious. Then there were the scars, which Harley was surprised to see had faded significantly in the year and a half since she'd last seen him. They were still impossible to ignore, but less grotesque than Harley remembered them. They used to be red and angry looking, now they were softer, almost like his old self with these two imperfections.

Despite having his hands chained to the table, he was lounging in the chair they'd put him in like a big lazy cat, staring at the wall as he prodded the scars inside his cheek with his tongue. But when the door slammed shut, his eyes swung straight to Harley and she felt a shudder roll through her body as he looked her over quickly then met her eyes.

"Hey, baby," he drawled, his eyes narrowing as Harley lowered herself into the chair across from him, her heart still beating manically, making her dizzy.

"Hi, Jack," she replied, her voice magnificently strong as she crossed one leg over the other. His eyes darted down to her heels, then back up to her face.

Then they just looked at each other for a few long seconds, drinking each other in.

"_So,"_ he purred, his lip curling nastily. "You've been talking to the DA. Tellin' her all my... _secrets,_ huh?"

"What did you expect me to do?" Harley replied cooly. "After what you did."

He chuckled indulgently, without humor, his eyes narrowing until he was squinting at her. "What I... _did,"_ he licked his bottom lip quickly. "Hmm."

"Yeah, Jack," Harley replied, folding her arms over her chest. "What you did."

_"Riiiiight,"_ he closed his eyes and nodded slowly. "I _almost_ forgot... Harley the _good_ girl. The _nice_ girl. How could she not be... _horrified_."

Harley took a deep breath, steadying herself. He was pissed off that she'd come forward, which she'd prepared herself for. It wasn't often she got on his bad side. Over the decade she'd known him, he was usually the one fucking up, pissing her off, having to ask her to come back. Ask her? Yes. Beg her not to go? Yes. Apologize? _Never._ He'd always presented it as a choice that wasn't really a choice. Again and again.

She pressed her lips together, recalibrating, then looked up at him again. His hair had flopped forward, covering one eye as he glowered at her. She waited for him to rake it back like he always did, that swift, sharp movement, but his hands were bound to the table. He couldn't reach it. He was a prisoner. He had been _caged._

Harley felt tears sting the backs of her eyes, but she fought them off.

"How are you?" She asked, forcing herself to remain calm.

"Uh, how _am_ I?" He looked up at the ceiling, a quiet, incredulous laugh jumping out of his throat before his eyes darted down to her again. "Well, _baby,_ I'm livin' in a six by six concrete box, and they're talkin' about sending me to the _funny_ farm. They even gave me a _book_ about it."

"Is that what happened?" Harley glanced at the guard quickly, judging that he was listening intently. "You snapped? Lost control?"

Jack frowned and hunkered forward, bracing his elbows on the table as he examined her face, searching for something.

"Are you _really_ asking me if I'm _crazy_?" He cocked his head to the side, squinting at her curiously.

"I don't know how else to explain what you did," Harley replied coldly, and when his eyes widened in surprise, she felt tearfulness well up in her throat again and had to bite her lip to force it back. "I'm too close to it to give my professional opinion," she continued, strong and hard and cold as ice. "It wouldn't be responsible."

His head fell back, the chords in his neck sticking out as he started to chuckle throatily, his shoulders shaking, and Harley braced herself for that shrill laughter she'd heard on the news and only once before in person.

"Oh, _baby,"_ his head fell forward, looking up at her through narrowed eyes, not a trace of amusement in the lines of his face. "That's _hilarious."_

"You were always the funny one, Jack," Harley spat back.

"Mmm. _That's_ more like it," he growled, shifting in his seat, licking his bottom lip twice. His eyes were glowing with that feral ferocity that used to scare Harley. "You angry, baby? Is that what this _really_ is? Give it to me straight, did I _offend_ your delicate _sensibilities..._"

"Of course I'm angry," Harley snapped, her mouth tightening into a scowl.

A slow, cruel smirk started to form on Jack's lips, and his eyes swept over her again, lingering on her neck.

"Uh huh," he hummed, his mouth twitching up on one side meanly. "Ya know, I _almost_ forgot how much you loved me to _fuck you_ when you were angry. Mmm, remember _that_?"

Harley sucked a breath in through her nose and rocked back in her chair while the guard shouted at Jack to behave himself. He continued to smirk nastily at her as she composed herself.

"Good thing you loved make up sex," she snapped. "Since you couldn't stop constantly fucking up."

He scoffed, his eyes rolling out to the side as he prodded his bottom lip with his tongue. Harley realized he was avoiding looking at her, the ghost of shame rippling across his face.

Shame over hurting her, but not over nearly destroying the city.

She pushed her chair back and got to her feet abruptly, knowing she wouldn't be able to keep up the cold, pissed off charade any longer. She'd gotten what she came for. She knew who he was now. She shot him one last withering look for good measure as she slung her bag over her shoulder.

"I'll see you later, Jack," she sneered, then turned and marched out of the room before he could respond.

* * *

Harley sat on the metro, her elbows braced on her knees, her head in her hands as she rocked from side to side with the movement of the train. She hadn't cried yet, though there was a near-constant prickling at the back of her eyes since the moment she left Jack with the guard. Seeing him made everything so much more real, it crystalized the truth of what he'd done and what she was now doing. Now she really understood.

He wasn't different from the man she'd left behind, no more than Jack the charming criminal was different than Jack the hitman, or Jack the hitman was different from the next iterations of himself. That's what happened when you grew up, you changed and evolved. The events of your life shaped and guided that evolution, and Jack's life had been full of darkness and pain. Jack was still there, but he was changed. _Evolved. _He was a force of nature now, masquerading as the Joker to prove a point. Why Jack felt the need to prove those points, Harley still wasn't sure. That was the kind of thing he'd tell her as they laid in bed together, sharing a pillow as he quietly explained like he'd done so many times before.

He'd kept a lot from her, but he'd shared a lot too. The pain specifically, less so the darkness.

She'd always had to find out about that for herself.

Either way, they wouldn't be sharing a pillow together to talk it out anytime soon.

Harley got off the metro in an Eastside neighborhood she'd only been to once before. It was a dangerous part of town, still run by the mob, which was currently in a shambles according to Janice Porter.

Janice Porter had told her a lot.

Gordon, too.

It took about ten minutes to find the bar she'd been taken to after being kidnaped by the mob thugs Jack owed money too. The Stacked Deck. She looked up at the sign hanging over a dilapidated door, gathering her courage before she pushed it open and crossed the threshold.

She sucked in a calming breath as she looked around the mostly empty, shabby bar. It was exactly as she remembered from five years earlier. There were a few men who looked like what she'd come to expect mob thugs to look like, bulky and heavyset, their purpose to intimidate and strong arm. That hadn't been Jack's job. Lean and handsome with messy hair, a little weird; he'd been a hitman with a skillset — never one of these bargain variety goons.

Harley walked up to the bar, eyeing the bartender warily until he looked up at her. It was Johnny, the thug who'd been nice to her, just as she'd been told to expect.

He was frowning at her, likely wondering why a pretty blonde professional was in his bar, and when Harley offered him a tight smile, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Johnny, right?" Harley asked, dropping her handbag on the bar.

"Yeah... yeah, I'm Johnny." He squinted at her, and Harley could tell he was struggling to place her. "Who's askin'?"

"My name's Harley," she explained, pulling out an envelope thick with the cash she'd gotten out of the bank earlier that day, and laying on the bar between them.

Johnny's eyes darted down to the envelop and back up to her face, his eyebrows raising. "Nice ta meet ya, Harley. Is there somethin' I can do for ya?"

Harley pressed her lips together. The ball was rolling steadily along now, and there was no stopping it.

"I need a favor," she said, pushing the money toward him.

* * *

**A/N: Ooooh....**

**Feedback as always, is welcome. **


	8. The Scars

Weightless Spaces

8\. The Scars

* * *

Harley spent the evening of her twenty-eighth birthday at Arkham Asylum, furiously typing out her analysis of the research she'd been collecting on the inmates. Her internship at Arkham comprised the last year of her PhD along with some teaching at Gotham U. She shared an office at Arkham with one other PhD candidate, a girl called Jess Klein whose primary interest was the incarceration and rehabilitation of violent, mentally ill men. Harley and Jess were the last ones from their PhD cohort still in Gotham. Everyone else chose to go to another part of the country to finish their degrees. Who would want to stay in Gotham longer than they had to?

Harley knew Jess had wanted to go to California but hadn't gotten into her chosen program out there. Harley, on the other hand, she just felt tethered to the city and couldn't seem to give it up.

"I can't believe you're working on your birthday," Jess observed as she packed up her laptop.

"I need to get this done before the break starts tomorrow," Harley shrugged.

Jess frowned, hooking her bag over her shoulder. "Are you going home for the break at least?"

"No," Harley sighed, rubbing a hand over her face. "My dad doesn't even know who I am anymore. I'll stick around here and get some work done from home."

"Yikes, that's rough," Jess winced sympathetically. "You work way too much, Harley. It's not like they're _paying_ us to put the extra hours in."

"Yeah, well," Harley shrugged affably. "In six months I'll graduate and then I can go make some real money somewhere."

Jess made a sympathetic face. Her parents were paying for all her tuition and gave her a credit card to live off of.

"Alright," she sighed and headed for the exit. "Have a good Christmas. Try to relax if you can, okay?"

"Thanks, Jess," Harley replied with a faint smile. "Merry Christmas..."

It was almost midnight by the time Harley made her way home, tired and a little depressed as another birthday came to a close. As she rode the metro home from the Narrows, her thoughts were mostly consumed with her money problems as was more often than not the case lately. The stipend she got from Arkham was hardly keeping her afloat while she defaulted on her student loans and paid for her dad's care home on credit cards.

It hadn't been a great year. First, there had been leaving Jack, which threw her into a black pit of despair. Being heartbroken over him while also feeling betrayed and scared of him was a dark hole that had been hard to crawl out of. The man you love is a murderer, but instead of being glad to see the back of him, you wish you'd just never found out he was a killer. Luckily Harley had no way to get in touch with him, so no matter how tempting it was, she wouldn't have been able to find him even if she wanted to.

Then just a few months later, around Christmas, Harley got a call from a hospital back home. They told her her father was showing steadily increasing signs of dementia and needed to be put in a home. Care homes were expensive, so that was the end of the life insurance money from Harley's mother, as it was the end of any other minor financial extravagance.

In September, a full twelve months since the night she found out what Jack's 'jobs' were, Harley started her Arkham internship. It was far more intellectually rewarding than the research Harley had been doing at the university, and that helped lift her up to some degree. Still, the debt was piling up, and Harley was starting to feel like she was suffocating beneath the weight of it. Luckily, a PhD in clinical psychology meant there were big paychecks to be found if you knew where to look.

As a twenty-two-year-old college graduate applying for PhD programs, Harley had had ambitions of academia and tenure and research. She could have never envisioned herself so desperate for money that she would be willing to take the biggest paycheck she could get her hands on.

She supposed that was all part of growing up.

After dragging herself up five flights of stairs - the elevator was still out of order, as it had been for all four and a half years she'd lived there - Harley sighed in relief as she passed through her front door and turned on the lights. She pulled open the refrigerator to stare at the mostly empty shelves, populated only by her one birthday beer and some leftover pasta. She grabbed the beer and cracked it open before heading to her desk to torture herself over her finances.

She groaned into her palm when she checked her account balance online. $300 to last her the rest of December, and she was only a week into the month yet.

"Fuck," Harley whined into her hands, trying to scrub the anxiety away. She stood up and pushed her chair back from her desk, deciding the only thing to do was go to bed where she would hopefully not dream about money - a common occurrence lately - but stopped when she heard something out on the fire escape.

There was a gentle creak, and then another louder one.

Someone was climbing up the fire escape.

Harley quickly shuffled through her desk drawer, searching for the revolver she'd kept there ever since she got kidnapped by the mob. Her hands shook as she opened the chamber to make sure it was loaded, and as she pulled back the hammer, a hand appeared in the window of the French doors leading out to the fire escape. The hand knocked twice, leaving a smear of blood on the glass.

Indecision coursed through Harley as she stared at the streak of blood on the window, fingering the trigger of her gun. Then the hand appeared again, pressing flat against the window as a pair of eyes appeared beside it — sunken eyes beneath a flop of messy hair.

_Jack_.

"Shit!" Harley hissed hoarsely, a confusing storm of feelings sweeping over her.

She met his eye through the window, hesitating until his hand started to slide down the glass and it became apparent something was very wrong. Harley jumped into action then, her heart thudding in her neck as she set the gun back on the desk and opened the French doors. Jack tumbled in and caught himself on one hand. He had his other arm pressed against the lower half of his face, his mouth deep in the elbow of his heavy coat.

"Jack?" Harley asked, her voice wobbly as she watched him collapse onto his elbow and roll onto his back, keeping his arm over his face the whole time. "What's going on?" Harley demanded, her eyes sliding over him.

He was dressed completely differently to how she'd ever seen him, in a gray suit and white shirt under his overcoat, his shoes a pair of dark brown brogues.

Far more arresting than his new clothes, was the fact that he was covered in blood, soaking the front of his shirt and spattering down his pants and on his shoes.

Harley couldn't see where he'd been hurt, and she wondered if this was someone else's blood - he was a killer after all - but then he gingerly lifted his arm from his face and she sucked in a horrified breath.

There were two cuts on his face, stretching from the corners of his mouth and up his cheeks. Harley realized belatedly these weren't just cuts, that she was looking at jagged pieces of flesh where his face had been cut right through, exposing the muscle and sinew inside his cheeks. His whole face had been carved open.

"Oh my God," she whispered, watching his adam's apple bob as he clenched his jaw hard, his eyes rolling back in his head.

Harley grabbed her phone off the desk and started to dial 911 when he made a horrible sound somewhere between a grunt and a whine, and Harley looked up to see him waving his arm furiously, a clear signal. _No police, no hospitals, no 911._

Without his jacket covering his face, his wounds started bleeding fresh again, rivers of blood streaming down his face and his neck, trickling over his ears and into his hair, which Harley belatedly realized then was stained green.

She fell to her knees beside him and grabbed his arm, shoving it back over his mouth to staunch the bleeding. Beneath the blood, he was white as a sheet, and if the blood on his clothes was any indication, he had lost a lot of it.

"You need to go to the hospital," Harley insisted, but his hand sliced through the air in a sharp, precise movement. _No._ "You're going to bleed to death!" Harley cried, feeling tears well up in her eyes, but he just made that same sharp, chopping motion with his hand again. _Not up for discussion. No hospitals._

Feeling helpless, Harley watched his eyes roll back, close, open again, squeeze shut tight, roll back again. The pain must have been excruciating.

"They can give you pain killers," she tried weakly. "Morphine..."

Another sharp chop of his hand. _Absolutely not._

"Then what are we going to do!" Harley snapped, and something about the tone of her voice seemed to spur him to action. He rolled up to sitting, keeping his arm over his face as he swayed there, then used his free hand to push himself to his feet before he staggered into the bathroom.

Harley trailed after him, clasping her trembling hands in front of her as she watched him rifle through her medicine cabinet. He pulled out a tub of vaseline and slammed it down on the counter, then ran the hot tap and pumped some handsoap into his palm before he finally removed his arm from his face and bent over the sink.

He started splashing soapy water on his face, his breath coming in short, harsh pants through his nose. Harley could only watch for so long before she rushed forward and grabbed his arm, pulling him away from the sink. Her first aid knowledge was cursory at best - minor cuts and burns, sure, but this was something else entirely. Still, the usual rules must have applied.

"Sit down," she instructed him, pushing him toward the toilet. He had his arm up over his face again, his eyes narrowing at her over the top of it. Harley narrowed her eyes right back at him and gave him another shove until he staggered back and fell down on the closed toilet seat, blinking hard.

"We need to stop the bleeding," she told him, her voice low and steady even though she felt like screaming. She turned to the linen closet, a large, decorative piece of furniture that she nad never been more grateful for than in that moment, and grabbed a stack of clean towels and washcloths, then set them on the side of the sink and washed her shaking hands.

He watched her warily as she approached with a towel and squatted down in front of him. He was still panting through his nose and blinking hard, and he had one hand balled up into a fist so tight his whole arm was shaking. Harley felt tears fill her eyes again as she pushed his arm away and held the towel up to his face, pressing it against his wounds. She could see how much pain he was in, and it made her throat tighten as she unsuccessfully attempted to sniff back the tears, which were now rolling down her face.

But he just kept bleeding, the towel soaking up blood while his skin grew whiter and whiter, and Harley started to panic as his eyelids began to droop.

"It won't stop bleeding," she sniffled, her voice weak and watery. "I can't get it to stop."

He flung his arm out suddenly, grabbing the vaseline he'd pulled out of the medicine cabinet and wrestling the lid off Harley's eyebrows jumped, bewildered as he scooped up a glob of vaseline with two fingers then raised them to his face. He closed his eyes like he was bracing himself, then shoved both fingers straight through the jagged flesh at his cheek. He made a horrible, pained choking sound as he dragged his fingers along the length of the wound until he reached his mouth, smearing the vaseline along the raw, open skin.

"Oh, Jack," Harley pleaded, sobbing openly. She didn't know what she was pleading with him for, maybe just to stop. But then he scooped up another glob of vaseline and did the same on the other side.

His arms fell limp by his sides, and his head lolled back against the wall, completely drained. He was white as a ghost, the black circles growing around his eyes making him look half dead.

The vaseline did slow down the bleeding, though. Harley grabbed a clean towel and pressed it against his mouth as she chanted his name, trying to keep him awake while his eyelids drooped and his head bobbed.

Something _possessive_ ballooned inside her, making her determined to keep him alive and awake. She stood up and hooked a leg over his thighs, then lowered herself down onto his lap with her knees astride him. His eyes opened suddenly, finding hers, and Harley discovered that her throat was too tight to say anything as she held the towel against his mutilated face.

At least twenty minutes, or maybe half an hour must have passed as they sat there staring at one other. Harley checked the towel every few minutes to see if the bleeding had slowed, and once she was satisfied he was clotting, she sighed in relief. He wasn't going to bleed to death, but now she needed to make sure the wounds were clean so he didn't die of an infection.

She got a soapy washcloth and started on the seemingly endless task of cleaning up the blood covering his face, neck, ears, and hair. It was like something out of a horror movie. He started bleeding a little bit when she cleaned the cuts, but not as bad as it had been before. Jack hardly reacted to any of it, his head lolling limply against the wall as he stared at Harley through hooded eyes.

"Okay," Harley said, gently smoothing his hair back from his face as he blinked sleepily at her. "I think I'm going to have to... stitch this closed."

He nodded sluggishly, and Harley climbed off him to hunt down a needle and thread.

Keeping Jack alive and not bleeding was enough to distract her from a swarm of facts that she would need to work through later. For now, her mission was clear. She searched the apartment until she found a hotel sewing kit in her bedroom, then returned to the bathroom to disinfect the needle and thread with rubbing alcohol before she lowered herself into Jack's lap again.

When his eyes fluttered open, she was sure she saw something like a smile there as both of his hands landed on her thighs, his fingers curling into her jeans.

"God, Jack," she sighed, threading the needle, feeling more optimistic he wasn't going to die even though the worst was yet to come. "Who the hell did you piss off this time?"

He hummed weakly, and Harley smoothed his hair back again, pushing it off his forehead and staring hard into his eyes before she shifted her attention to his mouth. He growled low in his chest when the needle first pierced the skin, and the cuts started bleeding fresh as Harley learned she was going to need to be more aggressive than she'd realized to get the needle through his face to stitch it closed.

She'd never fully realized how thick the human cheek was as she worked. She pinched that bloodied, jagged flesh together and sewed it shut with ruthless efficiency, becoming numb to the carnage as she focused on Jack's steady, rhythmic panting to keep herself calm while fresh blood ran down his face and over her hands.

When both sides were finished, Harley nearly collapsed, feeling dizzy. She held on long enough to clean him up again and lay down a few bandages, then wrapped the bottom half of his face in gauze. Once that was done, Harley folded forward to lean her face against Jack's shoulder and tried to find the strength to stand. She felt his hand slide into her hair, his fingers tangling into the long, wavy strands before hanging loose like he'd lost the energy to keep his arm up.

Harley pulled herself up, knowing she couldn't be weak. She needed to be strong for him.

"Let's get some sleep," she suggested, her throat feeling thick as he nodded weakly.

Wanting to keep the blood isolated to the bathroom, Harley pushed his coat off his shoulders and helped him get his arms out of it while he remained sitting with his head against the wall. She did the same with his gray suit jacket before she started on his shirt, undoing each of the bloodied buttons then pushing the garment off his shoulders.

She cleaned the blood off his neck and chest where it had snuck beneath his shirt, then knelt down beside him to pull off his shoes and socks before she started on his belt and pants.

He made a faint, intrigued sound as he lifted his hips to help her get his pants off, and Harley looked up to see he was attempting to raise a suggestive eyebrow at her.

"Maybe some other time," she said, her voice weak from the stress of the evening, but she laughed quietly when he gave an offended little hum as she pulled off his pants.

Harley started on her blood-stained clothes next, stripping down to her bra and underwear before she pulled Jack's arm over her shoulder, hooked her arm around his waist, and hauled him to his feet, helping him stagger out of the bathroom and around the corner to her bedroom.

Harley set him on the bed then turned to her closet to hunt down an old pair of sweat pants that were too big for her. He shook her off when she tried to dress him, making an annoyed sound before he struggled into the sweat pants himself, then shot her a dubious look when they only reached mid-calf on him and sat absurdly low on his hips.

Harley laughed weakly as she pulled on her pajamas and crawled into bed beside him. Even after nearly bleeding to death and getting his face maimed, he was still funny. She squinted at him in the dark, wondering how he was coping with what must have been near-constant, agonizing pain.

His arm flopped out suddenly, reaching for her, and without questioning it, Harley scooted across the bed, laying her head on her chest and wrapping her arm around him as his hand snuck into her hair.

He fell asleep fast, but Harley lay awake for a long time, listening to his heartbeat, willing it to keep going.

* * *

Jack slept for most of the next day while Harley snuck out to run some errands. The pharmacy to stock up on supplies, the grocery store for food that could either be swallowed whole or consumed through a straw, a discount store for clothes and a trip to the free clinic where she convinced the doctor on duty that she had a sinus infection and needed a course of antibiotics.

She went home and got some food, water, and antibiotics in him, then tried to get some work done when he went back to sleep.

The next morning, Harley woke up curled around Jack again, and when she lifted her head, she was surprised to find him staring down at her. With half his face covered in gauze and only his eyes and his nose visible, he looked a little silly, but knowing what was beneath the dressing was enough to keep it from being funny. Harley offered him a sleepy smile, and she felt his chest rise and fall as he took a deep breath and sighed it out through his nose, his eyes never leaving hers.

Harley shifted to lay her head on the pillow beside him so she could look into his eyes, her fingers trailing over his chest and shoulders as they watched each other. She didn't know how long they laid there in silence, simply looking at one another, but she felt the contentment she only ever felt with him and knew it was unlikely that she'd let him go again.

It wasn't the right time to worry about what would happen next. For now, Harley had Jack recuperating in her bed, potentially hiding out too if whoever had carved his face open had intended to kill him. For now, Harley told herself, it was okay to have him there without asking herself any of the hard questions she'd been forced to face in the wake of their last break up.

Namely, that his being a hitman for hire wasn't necessarily the line in the sand she'd thought it was the night she'd found out what he did for a living.

Laying there with him in her bed, staring into familiar brown eyes she'd known for so long, Harley couldn't see a killer there. She only saw Jack. She wasn't ready to accept that she could permanently look past what she knew he was, but she chose to set those horrible facts aside while his life was in danger. Things were already too stressful without spending time worrying about what else he was. For now, she had him, and that was good enough.

Most of the three weeks that followed went by in this fashion. A lot of silence, a lot of sleeping, a lot of gazing at one another for long stretches of time since he couldn't talk. Harley would work from her laptop in bed, then turn to psychology journals when she hit a wall with her thesis. Jack picked up some of her journals when he got bored, just as he'd always done, his eyes scanning the pages, consuming information that should have been beyond him as a novice. Then again, he'd been reading Harley's psychology textbooks for almost as long as she'd been studying the subject.

Christmas rolled around, and Harley and Jack spent most of the day on her couch, alternating between napping and laying with their heads close together on the pillow.

The fourth week, when Harley's winter break ended, she reluctantly went back to Arkham. It felt like being doused in cold water after luxuriating in the warm sun. Luckily, since she'd worked so much from home over the break, she was massively ahead of her workload and had no reason to stay late. She rushed back home to find Jack puttering around her apartment looking painfully bored now that he was getting his strength back but still couldn't go out in public.

His face was healing slowly, and Harley estimated the stitches could come out any day now. Whenever she changed the gauze and bandages, she felt a deep swell of guilt. The healing skin was thick and knotted - her fault for not being better with a needle and thread - but when she cried and told him this, he scoffed impatiently like she was being stupid.

But no matter how much he tried to pretend it didn't bother him, Harley could tell he had feelings about his face being mutilated. A person's face is part of how they identify themselves when they think 'me,' and now Jack's face would never be his again. The scars would always mark him, a violent act in plain sight for everyone to see. These were the kinds of scars little kids pointed at in the street, and old women stared at in grocery stores, the kind that made people judge you and fear you without knowing you.

Freak.

Monster.

_Villain._

Harley hoped Jack knew she didn't think those things.

Frustrated and bored, he took the stitches out one day while she was at Arkham. Even mostly healed, he kept his jaw clenched tight and didn't speak. Harley sensed there was a fear that if he opened his mouth too wide, his face would split in half again.

He was getting antsier with each passing day, especially when Harley had to go to work and he had nothing to keep himself occupied with aside from psychology textbooks and television. So she told Arkham and the university that she needed to spend time with her father back home and took a three-week leave of absence to stay home with Jack. She didn't know what would happen to him once those three weeks were over.

Now that she didn't have anywhere to be, they slipped back into their routine of bed, books and laying around tangled up in one another.

"Are you ever gonna talk again?" Harley asked him one morning in bed, a few days into her 'leave of absence.' He was laying on his back, and she was propped up on her elbow beside him, her hand on his chest, her fingertips tracing his sternum. It had been six weeks, and every medical opinion Harley had read told her he should have healed enough to speak. "I normally can't get you to shut up," she added with a sly smile.

"Maybe," he muttered, his mouth twitching up on one side.

That was something to be excited about. Even if she had helped him get two horrible scars, at least Harley hadn't given him permanent nerve damage. He could still smirk at her cheekily even if he wasn't being his usual mouthy self.

"Uh huh," Harley grinned, scooping her long hair over her shoulder as she ran her nails down his chest, watching his eyelids droop. "How much self-restraint is this taking?"

His eyes snapped open suddenly, something a little wicked glimmering there_. "Lots,"_ he growled.

Harley's pulse leaped, knowing he didn't just mean restraint over his mouth. She eyed him warily, trying to judge the situation as she let her fingers trail from his chest down to his ribs, lingering there for a moment before they drifted further down to his stomach.

He was watching her carefully, his diminished capacity to emote making it difficult to read what he wanted. Harley's fingers inched a little lower, tracing the elastic band of the too-small sweatpants he'd borrowed from her as she contemplated what doing this would mean.

In the end, she decided she didn't care and lowered her mouth to his as she slipped her hand into his pants. She heard him inhale sharply through his nose as she wrapped her hand around him and kissed him gently, waiting for him to take the lead to see how far he wanted to take things. His hand slid into her hair as he kissed her back hesitantly, seeing how far he could go, and after a few minutes, his hand was under her shirt, stroking her spine as his tongue rolled urgently against hers.

Harley nearly laughed. Food and talking didn't get him to open his mouth, but kissing her did.

He rolled her over suddenly, dislodging her hand from his pants as he settled between her legs and pulled back to look at her.

"You're _sneaky_," he accused, hooking his thumbs into the waistband of her shorts and dragging them down.

Harley laughed quietly until his hand snuck between her legs and he started to touch her. She sighed happily when his mouth connected with her neck, and then she sighed more throatily when he moved down to press his lips against her stomach, and then her hip bones, and then lower still.

He found that part of her even more motivating than even her lips.

* * *

The rest of Harley's time off felt like a trip through time back to the summer after he'd shown up at her front door looking for a place to lay low. Now, just like back then, Harley was too wrapped up in being with him to care what happened next. But soon enough she had to go back to work.

At first, he never left her place, rattling around like a prisoner during the day, exhausting her with his attention by night. Then, one night, Harley came home, and he wasn't there. She sat down on the couch, feeling like she was about to burst into tears when the fire escape started rattling, and she looked up to see Jack clambering in through the window.

"Baby, what's wrong?" He frowned when he saw her face, and Harley threw herself at him, knowing then that she couldn't lose him again.

But it wasn't that easy.

Jack started going out more and more, always at night. He was becoming nocturnal, more than he usually was. Harley could appreciate being out in broad daylight with his face looking so grotesque wasn't ideal, but she hated the idea that he could only exist in darkness now. That wasn't who he was, and she did her best to convince him of that.

Regardless of his rejection of daylight, there was no getting around the fact that he was 'working' again. He started to disappear for days at a time again. Two or three days, four at the most. Harley was waiting for the day to come where he never come back, in April she was sure that day had come.

Six days. He'd been gone six days. Harley sat at her kitchen table, fighting back tears as she applied for jobs in the private sector. She would be graduating at the end of May, which meant finally getting a real job that could pay her decent money. As much as she would have liked to stay on at Arkham in a research capacity, her bills were too steep for what they could pay her.

Harley checked her bank balance online, deciding that being miserable about money was better than being miserable about Jack.

But when she opened up her account, her eyes widened.

The number on the screen said there was $500,000 in her account.

Harley slapped a hand over her mouth, fresh tears welling up in her eyes as she realized that money was from Jack and that it probably meant he wasn't coming back.

She was torn between relief - that money _existed,_ it belonged to _her_ now - and despair that he was gone again. The despair easily won out, and she buried her head in her arms, allowing a sob to rip through her. She sat there crying until she lost the energy to produce fresh tears, her ragged breathing the only thing to keep her company.

But then the fire escape rattled, and Jack appeared outside the window. He leaned one shoulder against the French doors as Harley slowly rose to her feet, her shoulders shaking.

"Hey, baby," he drawled. He was wearing a rumpled suit, a purple tie hanging loose around his neck, and his hair was stained green again. "What's wrong?" He frowned, looking confused.

"What's wrong?" Harley hissed. "You put half a million dollars in my bank and disappeared for a week!" She lurched forward, pounding on his arm with her fist as she huffed and panted about what an asshole he was.

"Baby... _baby,_ calm down," he sighed, grabbing her hands and strongarming her into stopping. "C'mon, baby. Don't be like that."

"Don't_ be_ like that?" Harley scoffed, looking up at him incredulously. He had dark circles under his eyes, but he looked wide awake. That feral intensity that had always kind of scared her before was glowing a little brighter than it usually did tonight.

Harley knew what that meant. It meant he had been 'working,' and that meant somewhere out there, someone was dead.

Harley expected herself to be scared of that wildness glowing in his eyes. She expected disgust and betrayal knowing what he'd been up to and that he didn't intend to stop. She expected fear knowing the awful things he was capable of.

But she didn't feel any of those things.

She grabbed the front of Jack's shirt and pulled him down to her, kissing him aggressively.

Things changed that night. Jack was rougher with her than he'd usually be, and Harley found something _emboldening _about the way he grabbed her and shoved her and held her down. It allowed her to take and ask for more from him, helping her find a deeper, more intense pleasure in his arms than she'd thought possible. It felt like a dam breaking, a storm erupting, and she felt herself get sucked into something dark and powerful; something that tasted like that dangerous fearlessness she'd always known was inside him and was coming out more and more often now.

She searched it out, demanding it from him over and over again until the sun came up.

Jack was changing, Harley could see that.

But she was changing too.

* * *

**A/N: Tell me your thoughts, folks.**


	9. The Patient

****ATTENTION**: Turn on Nena's '99 Luftballons' before you start this chapter.**

* * *

Weightless Spaces

9\. The Patient

* * *

_Donald_ had been right about the nuthouse.

The two months the Joker spent at Blackgate waiting for his trial had been fine for the most part. The sleeping in a concrete box and terrible food hadn't bothered him too much, not as much as the bone-crushing boredom that came with being locked in said concrete box with only the occasional visit from Donald to interrupt the monotony of staring at a wall with nothing but his thoughts to keep him company.

Talk about driving a person _crazy._

He was now two months in at Arkham and man, _what_ an improvement. There was everything Donald had promised - his own cell with a cot, all the cigarettes he could smoke, even the occasional therapy session with Dr Leland, the woman who ran the joint. But better than all of that, were the _drugs._

He'd been high as a kite pretty much the entire two months so far. They'd doped him up with something in a syringe within minutes of getting him through the front door. It knocked him out for two days, and the days following that had been all fuzzy and floaty and _weird_, leaving the Joker swaying around his cell in his slippers humming '99 Luftbaloons.'

_Dann singe ich ein Lied fuer Dich Von 99 Luftballons!_

Someone must have played that song while he slept those first days because he _still_ couldn't get it out of his head two months later.

_Dann singe ich ein Lied fuer Dich Von 99 Luftballons!_

Anyway, whatever had been in that syringe, he'd managed to get it a whole bunch of times by now. Also great for the boredom were the pills they had him popping. The muscle relaxers were fun, keeping him chilled out and carefree for the long stretches he was stuck in his cell. The anti-psychotics were even better; they made his mind race and his heart pound, made him feel creative and productive despite being stuck in a cell. Sleeping pills were good too - some minor hallucinations to keep him busy. But when you combined all of it with the shit in the syringes, then you got some_ really_ fucking _wild _hallucinations that lasted for days on end.

_Dann singe ich ein Lied fuer Dich Von 99 Luftballons!_

That heady cocktail was the best of all, and Arkham was more than happy to indulge him.

Harley occasionally visited him in these hallucinations. Scowling at him and sneering at him sometimes like she'd done at Blackgate. _Hating_ him because he was a _terrorist_. Other times she was all sweet and kind like she used to be when she looked after him — always taking care of Jack. His _baby._ Sometimes she'd show up singing '99 Luftballons,' trying to get him up off his cot to dance with her.

_Dann singe ich ein Lied fuer Dich Von 99 Luftballons!_

Mmmm, he _missed_ her.

This wasn't to say the Joker was giving up or accepting that he'd spend the rest of his life locked up in Arkham until they buried him out in the back lot.

_Nah._

This was just a brief vacation. At two months, the staff were still on edge and keeping a close eye on him. Just a _little_ longer and he could start to poke at the cracks and see where the land really laid. Their security practice was nowhere _near_ what Blackgate had to offer, no doubt because the inmates of Arkham were wasted a majority of the time on all the fantastic _drugs_.

The Joker was coming down from a few days of serious hallucinations that had predominantly featured Harley, the Batman, and Carmine Falcone. They were all sitting around talking about him, Harley shooting him concerned looks while the Batman rolled his eyes and Carmine smirked and made his usual promises.

_"Don't you worry Jack, we'll take care of you now."_

_"Jack, you're my best guy. Nobody's as good as you."_

_"There's other fish in the sea, Jack. I've always said blondes are too much trouble."_

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now Carmine was locked up just a few floors below the Joker, as was Jonathan Crane, another former colleague. What a _crazy_ town.

But now the visions of Carmine and Harley and the Batman had all faded away, the padded walls of his cell coming into annoyingly sharp focus, making his brain ache.

The Joker grumbled unhappily and palmed the sheets around him until he found his cigarettes and popped one between his lips to light it. He sighed out a stream of smoke, and rubbed his thumb into his eyes, trying to push away Harley and Carmine. The Batman could stay, but Carmine was as dull as he'd always been, and Harley was just too... _unreal_.

There was only _one_ Harley, and he didn't want to get the real one confused with a drug-induced version.

The Joker was sentimental that way. _Haha._

The door to his cell buzzed loudly before the locking mechanisms slammed back and the door swung open, and two guards with handcuffs appeared.

The Joker lifted his head to squint at them. "Hey fellas," he drawled cheerfully, swinging his legs over the side of the bed as he sat up and offered them his hands, excited to see where they'd take him.

"You gotta visitor," one of them snapped as he slapped the cuffs on him.

"A visitor?" The Joker asked around the cigarette still pinched between his lips, squinting at them.

"Shut up, freak," the guard said, grabbing his arm and hauling him to his feet, ignoring the lit cigarette tumbling to the floor.

"Uh... pretty sure that's a _fire hazard,_ boys," the Joker informed them, swallowing a giggle as they snapped at him to shut up again.

Fucking with the guards was fun and also the best way to get the syringe, but now the Joker was curious about this mysterious _visitor_. Donald, maybe? Donald had come a few times, as had that Stanford shrink woman who'd convinced the jury he was crazy enough to go to Arkham. She'd been the one to give him what amounted to a handbook on how to convince people you were crazy. Pretending to be insane was more entertaining than sitting around waiting to be charged, so he'd taken the ball and run with it.

_Excellent_ idea, in hindsight.

The guards marched him upstairs to Leland's office, which was where the _therapy_ occasionally happened. They stopped in front of Leland's door, and one of the guards grabbed the Joker by the front of his jumpsuit, shoving him back against the wall and getting in his face.

"You're gonna behave yourself now, aren't you, freak?" He sneered.

"Uh," the Joker's eyes rolled right and left, up and down the empty hallway before returning to the guard. "Listen, I _wanna_ say yes, but you're not givin' much to go, pal."

The other guard pulled open the door to Leland's office, looking apprehensive. Oh, _very_ interesting.

"_Behave,"_ the first guard snapped, yanking the Joker away from the wall and shoving him backward through the open door.

The Joker cocked his head to the side, his eyes narrowing to threatening slits that made the guard fumble nervously before he slammed the door shut and locked it.

Leland's office was lit by a few dim lamps and a stream of sunlight sneaking through the curtains. The Joker had been there a few times already for _therapy,_ and as he turned around, he expected to find Leland behind her desk, offering him her pinched smile that suggested she wasn't as patient as she liked to think she was. Instead, he was confronted with a figure sitting in one of the two chairs in front of the desk.

Harley turned to look at him over her shoulder, her expression grim. "Hi, Jack," she said, sounding tired.

Jack licked his lips, trying to decide if she was real - if this was the _real_ Harley or a chemically-induced hallucination. Not only did she not burst into song, but she fixed him with one of those sad, lingering looks of hers, a look so loaded with nuance that no hallucination could ever replicate it. That look made Jack's knees weak, and his intestines twist, and his shoulders sag, and that feeling of an alien trying to burrow out of his chest struck him hard, almost choking him.

Then she looked down at her hands, giving him little choice but to stagger forward to join her.

"_Well_..." Jack said when he reached her chair, but he suddenly felt like he hadn't spoken in months. Like he'd lost or numbed the part of his brain that allowed him to _converse_. Words always came easily to Jack, he hardly thought about what came out of his mouth half the time, but he suddenly felt... _broken_ in Harley's presence.

The '_Well_' was still hanging in the air between them, so he finished it with a snide, "Isn't _this_ a nice surprise."

Harley turned her face up to him, and that awful sensation of having something forcing its way out of his chest hit him again.

"Sit down, Jack," she said quietly.

Jack lowered himself into the chair beside her, unused to being ordered around and actually feeling compelled to do what was asked of him.

_"So_," he drawled, fixing her with a pointed look as he tried to shake off all the _feelings_ she dug up in him. "To do what do I owe the_ pleasure_?"

She pressed her lips together thoughtfully, not looking at him, so Jack used the opportunity to examine her. Her hair was a little longer than it had been the last time he saw her, and still her natural honey blonde color with the heavy bangs that made her eyes look even bigger and bluer than they already were. Those_ eyes,_ they frequently made Jack just want to _sigh._ She was wearing a dark coat that mostly obscured the rest of her, but he could see where her knees were crossed that she was wearing a dress with sheer black tights and a pair of high-heeled ankle boots.

He remembered when she only ever wore ballet flats and flip flops. _Religiously_. Then she'd graduated and started working at her _real job,_ and it was _always_ heels that kept getting higher and higher and higher until he'd find himself almost eye level with her sometimes. Then she'd kick her heels off, sighing after a long day, and suddenly drop back down to her normal height, and Jack would need to bend down to kiss her which he preferred anyway.

He fought back a smile, twisting it into a nasty smirk as he waited for her to speak.

"I had lunch with Joan... Dr Leland," she explained slowly, her eyes lifting to meet his. "She was on staff here when I was doing my internship, and... I told her I wanted to meet you."

Jack narrowed his eyes, trying to decide if lunch with her old friend_ Joan_ was a result of wanting to see him or vice versa. Was he the chicken or the egg? Another interesting question: why didn't _Joan_ know who he was to Harley? How was she keeping this so under wraps? It was way too juicy to stay a secret. All of it was a little... _weird_.

"Anyway, I just wanted to see how you are," Harley continued with a sigh, her eyes drifting over him quickly. "You look better."

Jack snorted, amused by this assessment.

"Well rested, I mean," she added, looking down and then back up at him. "So? How are you?"

"Ohhh..." Jack sighed, prodding his bottom lip with his tongue as he considered his answer. "_Sober,"_ he finally settled on, and to his great delight, Harley laughed gently.

She raised an eyebrow at him, a smile playing around the corners of her mouth. "Sober?"

"Mmm," he nodded, smirking slyly at her, wondering what it would take to get her to laugh again. "They got me on all this crazy shit that makes me see things... don't get me wrong. I'm_ loving_ it. But I can't get that song uh... '99 Luftballons' out of my fuckin' head."

He rolled his eyes in exaggerated exasperation, and when they landed on her again, she had her lips pressed together like she was trying to stop a grin. He felt himself lean in without meaning to, his eyes glued to her face as the grin slowly blossomed on her mouth no matter how she tried to fight it.

"What?" He narrowed his eyes, and she looked away quickly, sighing reluctantly before she met his eye again.

"Do you remember that summer with the heatwave? It was probably the third year of my PhD, that second summer after you came back," she was trying unsuccessfully to dial her grin down as she spoke. It was... _mesmerizing, _and Jack was struggling not to let his face devolve into some delirious lovesick puppy smile. She lifted her eyebrows knowingly at him. "And we dropped acid?"

Ohhhh. He _did_ remember that, and he chuckled throatily, thinking about that night, which had ended in a lot of fantastically intense sex after the initial trippiness passed.

"And I really wanted to go outside," she continued, still grinning. "And the only way you could keep me in the apartment was to keep playing '99 Luftballons' on that shitty stereo I had?"

She shot him a sly look then, and his eyes widened. He'd forgotten that part, or at least he thought he had. Clearly not if that song was rattling around his brain some six or seven years later when he just happened to be tripping on a regular basis.

"Shit," Jack said quietly, and Harley finally muted her grin down to a gentle smile. His _nice_ girl. His _good_ girl.

"Yeah," she said, looking down at her hands as she shifted in her seat. Then she looked up at him, and her expression was as grim as it had ever been. "Jack... when you were..." She pursed her lips, struggling to find the right words because Harley was always very_ precise_ with the words she used. "When you were... being the Joker, were you happy?"

Jack frowned. He wasn't sure what kind of answer she was looking for to a question like that. He could tell she wasn't entirely satisfied with her question either if the frustrated frown on her face was any indication, so he decided to push her on it.

"You don't think I'm the Joker anymore?" He raised one eyebrow, leveling her with a heavy look.

"It's just a name people gave you," Harley shrugged. "But it's not _all_ you are."

Jack lifted his chained hands so he could rake his hair off his forehead as he thought over what she was saying. As if there were two sides to him, the Jack she knew and the Joker everyone else had recently become acquainted with. The problem with this theory was there was no 'Jack' for anyone but Harley. He only existed for her, in no small part because Harley kept his feet on the ground and without her, Jack became a force of nature known far and wide as the Joker. Jack_ was_ the Joker. Jack has _evolved_ into the Joker. Jack_ liked_ being the Joker. Giving into chaos had the most fun he'd ever had, and he'd do it again in a heartbeat once he was free.

"I guess what I'm asking," she continued haltingly. "Is when you were doing all those things... Were you happy?"

He sucked in a sharp breath through his nose, casting his mind back to the year that had just passed, and he really,_ really_ wished he had a cigarette on hand to help him with this self-reflection, which he wasn't good at on his best days.

_"Happy,"_ he said pensively, tonging the inside of his cheek and looking at Harley's stockinged knee instead of her face as he tried to find the truth for her. "It was... _a lot _of fun_,"_ he started with a throaty chuckle. "And _satisfying_," he added, with more conviction, and then he looked up at her, his expression as grave as hers. "It was _real._"

She held his gaze, nodding slowly, understanding, and Jack realized that she wasn't horrified after all, and she definitely didn't hate him for being a _terrorist_. He had to stop himself from reaching for her because touching her could end badly for one or both of them, so he did the next best thing and hunkered forward, forcing her to meet his eye.

"But happy? _Baby_..." he stared at her intently. "Baby, I'm only ever_ happy_ when I'm with you."

She swallowed, her eyes taking on that sad, lingering quality again as they darted around his face, and then she laughed bitterly, looking away.

"Well, that's not true," she said, the corners of her mouth turning down. "You were miserable before I left."

Jack shifted in his seat, his mouth pinching together as he prepared to counter. She was right, he had been miserable and feeling trapped, but she had been the only thing keeping him going. They only thing that mattered and the only thing keeping him alive while he did what he thought he was _supposed_ to do, even if it dragged him down and nearly killed him. Coming home to her was the only thing that made it bearable. And he told her all of that, watching her face get sadder and sadder as she remembered how things had unraveled last time, maybe with new eyes now.

"So, that's what happened?" She asked, her eyes all big and blue and sad and sweet. "I left and you... stopped doing what you thought you were _supposed_ to do?"

He understood what she was doing. She wanted to hear that there was blame to be laid at her feet. She wasn't wrong, but he refused to let her feel guilty. Guilt was a useless emotion, one not to be wasted on the people of Gotham no matter what she believed. He didn't feel guilty about the things he'd done. She shouldn't either.

"You left," he started slowly, his voice low and gravelly. "I made it... a few weeks, maybe a month before I ditched Carmine and those guys." He lifted his eyes to hers and could see she was listening intently. "I started doing my own thing and eventually..." He rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, a smirk sliding onto his lips as he recalled those early jobs that turned into bank robberies that turned into sneaking into a mob pow wow, and none of those assholes had even recognized him even though _they_ had been the ones to give him the name Joker. "Eventually the ball just wouldn't stop rolling."

"You don't regret it?" Harley asked quietly, and Jack shook his head 'no' without thinking about it. He wasn't going to lie to her.

"Never," he said, fixing her with another heavy look. "This town needs someone _real_ to run things."

She held his gaze, her face serene as she examined him, and Jack realized he had no idea what she was thinking. He felt his throat get tight, and he was a moment away from asking when the guards unlocked the door and threw it open.

Harley's eyes widened as they stomped over to him and grabbed the front of his jumpsuit, then hauled him to his feet.

"Time to go," one of them announced, ignoring Harley as they started to march him away.

Jack could have shaken them both off easily, and he could have killed them within thirty seconds and gotten more time alone with Harley. He considered it, looking over his shoulder to see she was still sitting in her chair, staring after him as he was manhandled away. In the end, he let them do it. He didn't struggle because he didn't want her to see him like that. As it always was.

"Jack!" She called as they shoved him through the door, and the guards stopped, if only to exchange a look with each other over why a beautiful blonde woman was looking so sad and calling him 'Jack.'

"Yeah, baby?" He replied, clinging to these last moments with her. She could go for lunch with Leland again, and they could get a few more minutes together. Or he could never see her again. Now she knew what he wanted and who he was - not just Jack, but the Joker too - that was more than enough to keep her away.

"Look after yourself," she said, rising to her feet, holding his gaze across the room. "Stay sober, Jack," she added.

Jack blinked hard, unsure what to make of that advice, but the guards were hauling him away, and then he couldn't see Harley anymore.

As they marched him back to his cell, the sensation of an alien burrowing through him began to spread. Tearing through his lungs and his heart, pushing aside his liver and his kidneys, ripping out his intestines and cracking his ribs and smashing his bones until there was nothing left but a soggy pulp that used to be a man. He nearly slumped between the guards, feeling dizzy, needing something to block it out. He was a fraction of a second away from attacking one of them to get a syringe full of the good drugs when he remembered what Harley said.

_Stay sober, Jack._

What the hell did that mean?

The guards tossed Jack back in his cell, and he promptly flopped down on the cot, feeling limp and unlike himself as he lit a cigarette and scraped a hand through his hair. Of course, he didn't feel like himself, not after a _real_ interaction with Harley like that one. She was right; there was a difference between Jack and the Joker. Jack lived for Harley, and Harley brought Jack out in him, even if it wasn't all of him anymore. He was more than that now, and there was no going back.

Without drugs to distract him, he allowed himself to fantasize instead, wondering what the world would have to be like for the Joker and Harley to exist in it together.

* * *

**A/N: Thoughts, feelings, reflections, predictions? All are welcome!**


	10. The Gangster

Weightless Spaces

10\. The Gangster

* * *

Harley knew she got lucky. With half a million dollars in her bank account to pay off her debt and still have some left over, she was able to take the research position at Arkham, her dream job, the one she'd always wanted. Not only that, but she got to have Jack back too. He would do his usual act of disappearing for a day or two, but more often than not, he was in her bed and waiting for her to get home from work.

She had her own office at Arkham now that she was Dr Harleen Quinzel, PhD. No longer a grad student, she had to dress the part, chopping her nearly waist-long hair to her shoulders and dying it platinum blonde for the sake of doing something different, a little sexy, _grown up_. Jack _really _liked it. She gave up her skinny jeans and ballet flats for stylish suits and high heels. The high heels were empowering, and with a little help from that extra money in her bank account, she could indulge in as many pairs of shoes as she wanted. There was more money coming in, ten or twenty or sometimes thirty thousand dollars would pop up randomly. But the real satisfaction came from her work and coming home to Jack.

Jack wasn't so lucky. He was obviously not as happy with his job, even if he was making good money killing people. It wasn't the killing people part he hated, Harley managed to get that out of him one night though he spoke in code without directly saying it. It was the bullshit of the mob he couldn't stand, and there was plenty of bullshit to go around. Harley selfishly enjoyed the fact that she was the only thing in his life that made him happy, in part because it meant he would never leave her again because of it. But she did feel guilty for feeling that way.

Life went on this way as summer swooped in. Jack was tired and dissatisfied unless he was with Harley, but otherwise, things were okay. That changed toward the end of the summer, though. Instead of disappearing for a few days, Jack was out most nights, showing up at the crack of dawn and spending the day sleeping while Harley went to work. When she asked about it, he brushed it off.

"I got a promotion," he told her drily, looking unhappy about it.

It only got worse from there. He was out almost every night, and then when he did come home, he'd fall into bed beside Harley stinking of whiskey, too wasted to hold a conversation. Then Harley started finding little bags with white powder clinging to them that had fallen out of his pockets, and one night, she was confronted with two lines of cocaine racked up beside the bathroom sink. She didn't say anything, telling herself it was just a phase, but then he showed up one morning covered in glitter with a flyer for a strip club called Grin and Bare It in his back pocket.

Harley went to work and stewed all day, getting jealous and angry and then sad before she went back to angry again.

"What the fuck is going on!" She demanded when she got home.

He was standing in the kitchen, looking exhausted but like he was about to head out again anyway. Harley grabbed his chin and checked his pupils, happy to at least see they were normal-sized and he wasn't high. At least that was something to be happy about.

"C'mon baby, don't be like that," he drawled, trying to sling an arm around her, but Harley dodged back, glaring at him, and when he realized this wasn't going away that easily, he squared his shoulders and faced her head on, prodding the scar tissue inside his cheek as he'd been prone to doing when he was agitated lately.

"Well?" Harley threw her shaking hands up. "Since when does doing a bunch of blow with strippers count as working?"

"Since Carmine Falcone decided I'm part of his fuckin' _entourage_," he snapped back, narrowing his eyes at her. "His fucking mistress left him, so he's hitting it hard."

Harley's mouth nearly fell open, still stuck on the word 'entourage,' which was foreign to her to begin with, let alone the idea of Jack being part of one. The very concept of it was utterly at odds with everything she knew about him: wild, independent, free-spirited. A talented hitman. Not some coked-up sycophant gangster hanging out with strippers and mob bosses.

She tried to recalibrate, her anger leaking away as she realized the drugs were a coping mechanism, not overindulgence.

"Well, can't you quit?" She tried weakly, but Jack just scoffed and lit a cigarette.

"Baby, this isn't the kind of job you can _quit_," he huffed, raking his hair off his face and blinking rapidly.

"What does that mean?" Harley sputtered.

He shook his head, smoking furiously and biting his tongue as he avoided looking at her. Harley shoved him hard in the chest, trying to force the words out of him, and he shot her a dangerous, warning look_._ She shoved him again, glaring at him hard.

"It means they will fuckin' kill me if I try to leave, Harley!" He bellowed, grabbing both of her shoulders and shaking her so violently Harley could feel her teeth rattle together.

Then he stopped abruptly, looking alarmed as he stared down at her. Harley felt her throat get thick like she was going to cry, so she did the only thing she could and grabbed his tie, pulling him down to kiss her. His hands curled around her as the kiss grew more frantic, needier, and then Harley was being swung around and pressed up against the kitchen counter. She pulled back to scrabble at his belt and zipper before she turned around to bend over the counter, pulling her dress up while he wrestled her underwear off her.

Sex helped the situation. For a few minutes or a few hours depending on what mood they were in and how much time they had, they could escape the shittiness of the outside world and be wrapped up in each other. They would fight and have sex, or have sex so they wouldn't fight, or have sex just to make themselves feel better when they were too tired to fight. Harley knew it was toxic, but at least she had Arkham. Her research was repeatedly published and being called 'breakthrough.' She would smile and shake hands and give talks and presentations and then go home to find Jack with his head in his hands and an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts, and she'd do what she could to cheer him up, either with her body or her mouth or whatever emotional support she could give him.

The holidays rolled around and finally, _finally,_ things slowed down for Jack. It seemed Carmine got over his mistress leaving him and wanted to spend more time with his family. Even if Jack was his favorite, Carmine wasn't about to bring Jack to his family home to meet his wife and kids, not with his scars and his green-tinged hair.

But it was a wonderful reprieve. Without the pressure of living a life he hated, Jack eased back into being his wonderful, sly, funny self again, living to make Harley laugh even if that feral fearlessness in his eyes never entirely went away. But Harley had not just come _not_ to fear it, but to even like it too. The man she loved was dangerous - _lethal_ \- to everyone but her.

When the new year kicked in, Jack wasn't called back to Carmine's side. Instead, he started with jobs again, the old fashioned way. The number in Harley's bank account started to jump. Thirty thousand here, a hundred thousand there. She tried to ask what he was working on, but he refused to discuss it. Harley was morbidly curious. Who was worth killing for thirty grand and who was worth it for a hundred? But it wasn't worth arguing over, and they slipped through their second spring back together getting along as any other couple would. Not everything could be perfect, Harley reminded herself, and not everyone was as lucky as she was when it came to their work life.

The most she could get out of Jack on the subject of his work came one weekend when they were laying on the couch being lazy. Harley was propped up against the arm of the sofa while he was collapsed on top of her, his head against her shoulder, his body crushing her a little bit though she didn't mind.

"It doesn't _mean_ anything," he complained, taking a long drag off his cigarette while Harley twisted a lock of his hair around her finger.

"Maybe you just need to look for better..." She was going to say 'marks' or 'hits,' but she knew that would make him all twitchy, so she spoke in code as he did. "Jobs... you know, ones that would make a difference."

She felt his back vibrate as he chuckled low in this throat, and twisted around to grin at her.

"You want me to save the world, baby?"

"Just do whatever you think will mean something," she shrugged, smoothing her hand down his jaw and tapping him on the nose. "You're smart, and you're talented, you're good at what you do. You could do anything you wanted, and no one could stop you."

He hummed happily, smiling up at her with hooded eyes. "Maybe I just need something to uh... _inspire_ me."

Harley tried to think of something to inspire him, but she had no idea what that could be. She twined a lock of his hair into hers absentmindedly, thinking about the concept of inspiration. Inception. Imagination. What would nudge Jack to do what he really _wanted?_

"I wish I could inspire you," Harley sighed melodramatically. "I guess I'm just too boring."

"Ah, you could never be boring, baby," Jack drawled, stubbing out his cigarette in an ashtray on the floor before he shifted around, so he was kneeling between her legs. He ran a hand over her platinum curls and tugged on them affectionately.

"Not while I've got you around," Harley grinned, turning her face up for him to kiss her.

* * *

But this tentative reprieve couldn't last forever, and by the beginning of the summer, Jack had been sucked back into Carmine Falcone's orbit again, with little choice but to do as he was told. Things weren't as bad as they had been, and Harley didn't want to let it get that far. In her scramble to find a solution, she started to press Jack about introducing her to Carmine.

"Maybe if he met me, he'd be more sympathetic?" She tried while they were in bed one morning. He hadn't been to sleep yet, so it was probably the worst possible time to suggest this.

"Baby, he's a psychopath," he drawled, smirking at her faintly. "I've read all your books. There's no fuckin' way he's going to give us an ounce of sympathy just 'cause you bat those big blue eyes at him."

"Come on," Harley wheedled, scooting closer so she could lean on him. "I'm one of the foremost experts on psychopaths in the country. If anyone can handle him, I can."

He hummed thoughtfully then shot her a pointed look. "It's not happening, baby."

But Harley didn't give up on it.

"Don't the other guys bring their girlfriends out sometimes?" Harley asked him one-night while they were sitting out on the fire escape. It was August and too hot to be inside. She had a glass of wine while he chain-smoked relentlessly.

"Well, yeah," he said hesitantly, eyeing her warily. "But let's just say those girls don't have _Doctor_ in front of their names."

"So if I were stupid it would be okay?" Harley asked, unimpressed.

He sighed heavily, lighting another cigarette and tonguing his bottom lip as he considered his response, and he finally came up with: "Yes."

"Yes?" Harley's eyebrows jumped into her forehead. "Why?"

"I believe the word is... _misogyny_," he said drily, his lip curling as he stared at the burning end of his cigarette. "Smart women make them nervous."

"Jesus," Harley mumbled, and they exchanged a look of mutual disgust over the state of the world. "That's gross," she added.

"They're all assholes," he agreed. "And your name is all over the internet, baby. They could fuck your career up if they felt like it."

Harley spent some time musing over this, and the next time she and Jack were lazing around in bed, sweaty and spent after a day of indulging in each other, she proposed it to him.

"I have an idea," Harley propped herself up on her elbow and grinned down at him. "When you introduce me to Carmine we just tell him a different name."

He rolled his eyes and scraped his hair off his forehead, but before he could object, Harley kept going, knowing he was going to like what she'd come up with. It was right up his street.

"Wait, wait, hear me out," she grinned, sliding her palm down his jaw to get him to look at her. He had an unlit cigarette hanging from between his lips, and he narrowed his eyes at her, seeing she had something up her sleeve.

"What?" he asked warily.

"I'm published as Harleen Quinzel, not Harley," she said, her eyes lighting up mischievously. "So we just say my last name is Quinn."

He squinted at her owlishly, and then his eyes widened and his face split into a big silly grin. He tossed his unlit cigarette aside and rolled on top of her.

"Harley Quinn," he chuckled, shaking his head as he hovered over her while Harley beamed up at him. He smoothed her hair back from her face, dialing his grin down a few notches until he was smiling at her, almost sadly. "God, I love you, baby."

* * *

Carmine's new mistress was throwing a birthday party for him, and at long last, Harley was introduced to the most famous and fearsome gangster in Gotham. She put on her nicest dress and highest heels, and they caught a cab Uptown where Carmine's mistress lived in a townhouse, which Jack disdainfully insinuated Carmine was paying for by calling her 'kept.'

Harley could see for the first time that Jack didn't just keep her at arm's length because he wanted to hide what he did and who he associated with from her, but he wanted to keep her from _them_ as well. She was his secret, his brilliant, well-educated, successful secret who could never be kept, not even if she wanted to be. It made her feel a little bit guilty for forcing it, but she reminded herself that if this was going to last, she would need to force him to show her, whatever the cost.

Carmine Falcone was a jackass. That was Harley's first impression of the weathered mobster turning sixty-five with his twenty-year-old child-mistress wrapped around him. The mistress wore a dress that was more like a handkerchief, and even in a little red dress and scarlet lipstick, Harley looked modest by comparison, though the way she was getting ogled by the other men at the party suggested otherwise.

"Jack," Carmine grinned slavishly, opening his arms wide to hug Jack. "Where ya been, boy? Huh?" But before Jack could answer Carmine's eyes darted to Harley. "Woah, and who's _this_?"

"Ah... my girlfriend," Jack said around a cigarette he was struggling to light. He was avoiding looking at all of them.

"Harley Quinn," Harley said, holding out her hand and offering Carmine a smile.

"Jesus _Christ_," Carmine drawled, his eyes rolling over her lasciviously as he shrugged off his mistress. "How did a sweet thing like you end up with the fuckin' Joker?"

Harley fought back a scowl over being infantilized as a 'sweet thing,' and wound herself around Jack the way the mistress had been clinging to Carmine before.

"He makes me laugh," she said, smiling up at him lovingly. He finally got his cigarette lit and exhaled a stream out of the corner of his mouth, shooting her a dubious look. "And he looks after me," she added, nearly laughing outright at the pained look on his face.

It wasn't a fun party, but it gave Harley a sense of what the mob was really like. Sleazy was the best word for it. Gross was another good one. There were plenty of scantily clad 'kept' women to go around with the cocaine and champagne, though Harley hid her repugnance by pretending to be a frivolous wide-eyed idiot while Jack glowered beside her. He was the only man there who didn't look like a meathead, which Harley supposed was the reason he was Carmine's 'favorite.'

She could understand completely why he hated his job now. These people were disgusting and corrupt and vain, existing on a completely different plane from Jack, who was clever and creative and fiercely unique. Harley could see that this life would slowly kill him, not because of the ever-present danger - Jack could cope with that - but because it was sucking out his soul. As it stood, Harley was the only one keeping his soul in his body.

Things got worse after the party. It seemed after meeting Harley, Carmine was more attached to Jack than ever, or at least that was how Jack interpreted it as he complained to Harley through the constant cloud of smoke hovering around him. He would go away for days at a time, and Harley would have no idea what was going on, but the balance of her account kept ticking up, up, up, up, up until one day, there was over three million dollars in it.

"Let's just get out of here," she pleaded with him in November. "Jack, we have three million cash just_ sitting_ in the bank. Let's leave Gotham and start over somewhere."

"Start over somewhere?" He raised an incredulous eyebrow at her. "Baby, you didn't spend ten years in school just to go _start over_ somewhere."

"I wouldn't have to start over from scratch," she cajoled. "Just go work somewhere else. My friend Jess is at Stanford now, and they're doing lots of interesting work out there."

"Stanford?" He stared at her. "And what the fuck am I gonna do at _Stanford_?"

Harley ran a hand over her face, sighing because she couldn't find a good answer. "I don't know, Jack."

Things calmed down briefly over the holidays again. Harley turned thirty, and Jack got to decompress a little bit, but he couldn't completely relax. It was like he was bracing himself for something big to happen, and though Harley couldn't get him to tell her what it was, she knew it meant things were going to get bad again.

That was exactly what happened. Sometimes Jack would be gone a few days, sometimes a week. Never longer than ten days, but that didn't stop Harley from going back to that old fear that one day, he just wouldn't come home. No matter how she begged and pleaded that he tell her what was going on, he refused.

"I'm just sitting here waiting for the day that you don't come back!" She shouted, tears burning in her eyes.

"Baby, stop it, I always come back," Jack tried to appease her, looking as tired as he always did.

"You disappeared on me for two and a half years! She exploded, punching him on the arm.

He rocked back on his heels, pinching his lips together like he was holding something inside before he turned his feral eyes on her. "I was twenty-two and a complete fucking moron then!" He snapped at her. "You left me last time - what's stopping that from happening again, huh? As if I haven't given you enough fuckin' reasons?"

"Please, Jack," Harley sobbed, grabbing the lapels of his blazer. "Please just tell me what's going on so I can have some peace of mind."

"No," he growled, taking her hands and prying them off him, forcing them down by her sides.

"It's Carmine, isn't it?" She demanded, wiping her eyes furious, getting angry. "He's got you doing something bad, hasn't he?"

Jack just raked his hair off his face and lit a cigarette, looking exhausted.

"Jack," Harley stepped forward again, her eyes wide and imploring. "He's an asshole, and he's not that smart. Can't you just... can't you just..."

Harley trailed off as a possible solution she'd unconsciously been mulling over crystallized into a conscious thought for the first time. She thought about it every time she saw Jack looking miserable because of Carmine, but she hadn't really accepted it was something she wanted until that moment.

Jack was squinting at her, waiting for her to finish her train of thought. Harley sucked in a deep breath, feeling like she was taking a step off a cliff she'd been standing on the edge of for God only knew how long.

"Can't you just kill him?" She asked, raising her eyebrows appraisingly.

"What!" Jack barked incredulously, staring down at her.

"Knock him off the board," Harley said, making a sweeping gesture with her hand, surer of what she was saying as she voiced it out loud. "You're too smart to be working for anyone, let alone someone like Falcone. Jack, if he's gone, things could be different."

Jack was still staring at her, frowning, looking bewildered and alarmed and a little scared. Then he took a drag off his cigarette and looked away.

"Shit," he hissed.

"What?" Harley begged, trying to get him to look at her. "You could do it."

"They'll fucking _flay_ _you_ alive, Harley," he snapped, whirling around to face her. "That's what they'll do to me - they'll come for _you_. Fuck, I should have never let you in on any of this shit. _Fuck_." He ran another hand through his hair, pulling it tight as he squeezed his eyes shut.

"You have to do something!" Harley could feel a desperate sob rising in her throat, about to break free.

She attempted this line of logic a few more times. Get rid of Falcone and become the big boss himself. Make things how he wanted them to be instead of how they were by default. She was sure he could do it; she was sure he had it in him to do whatever the hell he wanted. He just needed to find the inspiration that would dig him out of the hole he was in. Harley tried to be that inspiration, but all she seemed to do was scare him further into submission of Carmine Falcone. Jack was too frightened to do anything because of what could happen to Harley if he failed.

He was fearless in everything, except when it came to her.

Through February and March, he continued to appear and disappear, and when he did appear, he was exhausted and just wanted to sleep. They stopped having sex, they stopped fighting, they hardly spoke to each other, and Harley could only hope that whatever this big job was, it would end soon and things could return to some semblance of normal for them.

* * *

Then things changed for Harley. Jeremiah Arkham retired, and instead of promoting Joan Leland, they hired a young psychiatrist named Jonathan Crane. At first, it was fine. Crane wasn't a fantastic boss, but he stayed out of the way for the most part. That changed in March when he started systemically transitioning the research trials Harley was carrying out to be drug-based rather than behavioral.

"We have been making huge breakthroughs with the research we're doing here," Harley argued one day in his office.

Crane sat behind his desk with hands laced together, his lips pursed as he examined Harley disdainfully.

"Dr Quiznel, I understand your... _concerns_," he pulled off his glasses and offered her a pinched smile. "By my specialty is psychopharmacology and that is the direction you will be taking your research from here on out."

She complained to Jack about Crane, and the first time she said the words 'Jonathan Crane' in his presence, Jack turned to stare at her, his eyes wide like something was only just occurring to him.

He raked a hand through his hair and looked away, muttering, "Oh, _shit_."

"What is it?" Harley asked, narrowing her eyes.

"Uh, nothing, baby," he faltered, busying himself with lighting a cigarette, so he didn't have to look at her. "Crane sounds like a fuckin' asshole," he added at length. "Maybe uh, you should look for a new job..."

She raised it with him a few times, but she felt like he wasn't listening or brushed her off. When she saw him, all he wanted to do was hold onto her and bury his face in her neck. He was sinking deeper into the dark hole of his own making - luckily one that didn't involve copious amounts of cocaine this time - and keeping even more from her than he usually did. Harley felt like she was living with a ghost. A ghost who needed her to remain somewhat corporal.

Then in May, she got an email from a research group based in Massachusetts. They were working with young psychopaths, collecting data to take preventative measures before the patients started committing violent, anti-social acts. It was precisely the kind of work Harley wanted to do. Dissatisfied and exhausted, she went up to Massachusetts to find out more. She was only gone one night, but Jack didn't even notice.

She handed in her notice at Arkham, too fed up with Crane to bother getting a new job locked in before she left. With that done, she started speaking to the directors of the project in Massachusetts more frequently, and with Jack appearing and disappearing intermediately, Harley numbly accepted their offer.

She had to get out. She couldn't watch Jack kill himself by strapping himself down. She told herself that maybe if she left, he would be forced to do something about his life. Without her around, he was too scared to do something drastic about his situation. She wouldn't be holding him back.

Harley wasn't the right person to inspire him. There was nothing Harley could do for him anymore.

* * *

She packed up the apartment, and the moving men came to take the furniture away. There was a new apartment waiting for Harley in Massachusetts. She would stay one more night in Gotham and leave in the morning.

She hadn't seen Jack for two weeks, but she was sure he would return eventually, and she didn't want him to come back to their empty apartment with her gone. It would be easy for him to track her down in Massachusetts, and she didn't want to give him a reason to look for her. She needed to provide him with some form of closure so that wouldn't happen.

So she checked into a hotel, put on a nice dress and heels, and caught a cab Uptown to the Iceberg Lounge where she was pretty sure she'd be able to find him. She felt numb as she walked past the line of clubbers winding around the block and up to one of the bouncers.

"Guestlist?" the bouncer asked, his eyes rolling over her.

"I'm looking for..." Harley stopped short of saying his real name and sucked in a breath through her nose before she looked up at the bouncer. "I'm looking for the Joker. Is he here?"

The bouncer's eyes widened. "You're looking for the Joker?"

"Yeah," Harley nodded.

A second bouncer joined them then, and he and the first one had a little chuckle together about a pretty blonde looking for the Joker. In the end, they shrugged, figuring everyone else would think it was funny too and let her in, one of them gesturing for her to follow him through a room of flashing lights and pulsing bodies. It was vile. It wasn't Jack, and this time, Harley didn't bother to hide her disdain as she was shown to a VIP area guarded by two more bouncers and a velvet rope.

Then she heard something that made her hair stand on end. A shrill, manic laugh that just kept going and going, one long note before the person dissolved into high-pitched giggles as Harley was allowed past the velvet rope.

Jack was the one giggling, surrounded by mobster thugs and scantily clad women and all the other terrible shit he couldn't stand. The women and some of the thugs were cowering away from him after that laugh, and he was smirking slyly at them, waggling his eyebrows and making a joke. Carmine was laughing boorishly at all of them. Jack was his favorite - his clown there to entertain him.

"Mr Falcone," the bouncer grinned, stepping aside and revealing Harley. "Joker's got a lady here to see him."

"Well, well," Carmine smirked, taking a drag off his cigar. "If it isn't Harley Quinn. Jack! Why've you been hiding her from us, huh?"

Jack wasn't listening to Falcone, though. His eyes had settled on Harley, glittering dangerously at her like a wild animal in the darkness. Harley stared back at him dispassionately, wanting to get this over with. It wasn't going to be nice, but she had made up her mind.

Falcone and his boys teased Jack about getting in trouble with his girl as he squeezed out of the booth and came to stand in front of her, towering over her even though she was in her highest heels and nearly eye-level with him.

"We need to talk," she said, watching him pop a cigarette between his lips and light it. Then he sighed out a plume of smoke, eyeballing her warily before he gestured for her to follow him away from the VIP area and down a short hall that ended in a fire door leading out to the alley.

"Baby," he ran a hand over his face once they were out in the alley, looking agitated. "What the fuck are you doing here? You know I don't want you around this shit."

"Yeah, I know," Harley said bitterly, pressing her lips together as the numbness started to wear off and she accepted what was really about to happen. She looked up at him and met his eye. "I'm leaving," she said.

He cocked his head to the side and squinted at her like he wasn't sure he'd heard her right.

"Tomorrow," Harley elaborated. "I'm leaving Gotham tomorrow."

He blinked at her for a moment, and then said, "Uh... _why_?"

Harley almost laughed. "Are you kidding?" She gestured between them. "This is not working."

"C'mon baby," he said, trying another tact as he tossed his cigarette away. "You don't mean that."

"Yes I do," Harley replied, almost glad he was being obtuse instead of begging. "You've been gone for two weeks, so I haven't been able to tell you. I got a new job up in Massachusetts."

He stared at her hard, his jaw twitching back and forth as he ground his teeth together thoughtfully, and when he didn't say anything for a long time, Harley filled the silence herself.

"This is goodbye," she said, her eyes darting down as she started to turn away. "I need to focus on work so please don't... try to get in touch or anything."

"Hang on, hang on, hang on," he chanted, suddenly jumping forward and grabbing her arm before she could leave. Harley looked up at him, watching him struggle to find something to say, and in the end, he settled on the worst thing he could have. "I can't do this without you, baby."

Harley sighed and looked away, feeling tears start to sting her eyes. "You won't even tell me what you're doing," she said at length.

"To keep you _safe_," he snapped, then he huffed out a breath to calm himself down and licked his lips as he grabbed her hand to squeeze it. "Listen, let's go home and talk, huh? C'mon, baby."

He started to sound a little desperate, and Harley could feel the tears start to brim, right at the surface, about to spill down.

"The apartment's gone," she said, staring at the wall of the club. "I moved out this morning."

"Harley, look at me," he said quietly, and when she refused, he squeezed her hand so hard the delicate bones ground together. "Look at me!" He demanded, his voice lowering dangerously, and Harley slowly lifted her eyes to his.

"This is happening," she told him coldly, even as tears started to roll down her cheeks. "I'm going, and it's over between us." She held her breath so she wouldn't sob.

"Baby, please," he grabbed her other hand and pulled them both up to his chest, clasping them together over his heart. He was blinking hard, licking his bottom lip reflexively. "_Please_, baby, don't do this. Not again."

Harley's shoulders started to shake, and she turned away, so she didn't have to look at him. Then she sucked in a deep breath and yanked her hands free of his. "Goodbye, Jack."

"No, no-no-no, _no,_" he grabbed her upper arms and twisted her around to push her up against the side of the club, pinning there. "You're not going _anywhere,"_ he informed her, narrowing his eyes.

Harley didn't struggle as she gazed up at him, blinking back tears. "What are you gonna do, Jack?" She asked, her voice weak. "Lock me away somewhere?"

"You're _not_ going," he snapped, his eyes narrowing.

Anger welled up inside Harley as she tried to wrench her arms free. But he wouldn't let her go, and she ended up spitting and swearing as she struggled against him, trying to rid herself of him.

"Let me go!" She huffed, getting one arm free so she could shove him hard. But he was like a brick wall, unmoveable, so she punched him on the arm instead. "Get off me! Get off me!"

He snarled then, a sound so feral and raw it sounded like an animal instead of Jack. He backed away from her, raking his hair off his forehead and looking determinedly away.

Harley rolled her shoulders back, trying to regain her composure as he turned back to face her, one hand covering his mouth as he struggled to find something to say again. He was speechless, Harley realized. Then his hand fell away from his mouth, and he held it out to her imploringly, desperate for her to take it.

"Harley, please," he pleaded.

"No," she groaned. "Please, Jack, please _do_ something about your life. I can't sit around watching you kill yourself because you think you're stuck in this fucked up mob world!"

He rocked back on his heels, looking around helplessly as he finally understood why she was doing this.

"Do something!" Harley said again, her voice catching as she sniffed back tears. "Do whatever you want! _Please_."

She took one last, lingering look at his face, memorizing it in case she never saw it again, then turned her back on him and started to walk away.

_"Baby_!" He called after her, his voice ragged and miserable. "Harley, please don't do this!"

But Harley didn't stop. She wrapped her arms around herself in an attempt to comfort herself and walked away from him. Again.

This time it wasn't because of what he did, but because of what he wouldn't do.

* * *

**A/N: One day, I may expand on this chapter in a fresh story. We'll see.**


	11. The Begining

Weightless Spaces

11\. The Begining

* * *

It had been a week since Harley visited. The last thing she'd said was_ 'Stay sober, Jack,'_ which was a cryptic and strange, but the Joker followed her mandate anyway. Maybe something would come of it, and he could do with a little time to think clearly anyway. He quickly figured out how to tongue the pills they gave him morning and night. Those little beauties were now collecting in a hole he'd made in the side of his mattress; who _knew_ when they might come in handy.

Without drugs to keep him entertained, he was painfully bored with little else to do but lay on his cot and chain smoke as he waited for something to happen. He applied a little more mental energy to the eventual escape plot he would need to instigate. Arkham had a lot more holes in their security than Blackgate. For example, therapy with only a set of handcuffs and no guards? _Risky_.

Escaping was on the table, but the Joker was still biding his time. The only thing worse than waiting for the right opportunity would be fucking up a breakout and having to wait even longer. _Nah._ The long game was always the smart play.

A majority of his time was spent replaying moments with Harley, specifically from her visit when she'd been all sad and sweet to him. Who was he kidding? He always thought about her. When they'd been together. When they'd been apart. When they'd been kids. When they'd been grown ups. Those terrible months before she left were a stain on all the rest of it, and though the Joker infrequently questioned himself, he did when it came to the way he'd handled that period.

He'd been disgusted with himself and scared shitless that something would happen to Harley if he stepped out of line. There had been the big, poorly-thought-out job of importing Jonathan Crane's drugs into Gotham. Crane had a seemingly endless cash supply from his backer, but he was a liability, and the whole mess was sure to fail. The Joker belatedly put two-and-two together a few months after the whole debacle started, that Crane was the director of Arkham and Harley's _boss_. So, he had pulled away from her even more, terrified of getting her sucked into his shit again.

And she left him because of it.

The Joker _wasn't_ crazy, and he could say that with some degree of authority after spending nearly ten years living with a psychologist off-and-on, reading her books and her papers and listening to her talk about her work, but there was truth to the notion that he'd _snapped _after she left_._ He'd given her the _nice_ version of what happened when she came to visit; that her leaving him had been the wake-up call he needed to ditch Falcone and do his own thing.

The truth was _slightly_ more than that.

He didn't remember much of the weeks that followed that night in the alley when she'd told him she was leaving. There had been drugs and booze and girls and even more drugs and girls, and when none of that fixed things, he went back to work. His work had been death for so long, that was just how he thought about snuffing out life: work. He didn't even need to get paid for it to be 'work,' and the Joker's capacity for 'work' scared people even more than his fucked up face did. Fear was powerful and potent, and the Joker drew from it, breaking away from the mob, wrapping himself in his need to do what he wanted, as Harley so aptly directed him to do.

What _did_ he want?

He didn't even know at the time, but working had helped.

Then the Batman happened, and_ everything_ changed.

He was the _inspiration_ the Joker had been searching for. The Batman was like a blinding ray of sunshine cutting through the darkness, and gradually, the Joker started to build something without the shackles of 'supposed to' that had been dragging him down for so long.

Eventually_,_ it built to the point where he was within a _hair's_ breadth of doing exactly what Harley had once asked him to do. Knock the other chess pieces of the board. Run the city. _Do what you want and no one can stop you,_ she'd said. Those words had rattled around his brain as he slipped through time and space without her, crafting chaos and violence and fear, building, building, building until the Batman took him down.

How would it have gone down if Harley had been there? By the time she left she'd been comfortable with things he didn't even _want_ her to be comfortable with. Not his _nice_ girl who kept his feet on the ground. Then _again,_ he was so relieved she didn't hate him for the whole _terrorist_ thing which his _good girl_ shouldn't have been okay with. Those sad, sweet eyes she'd given him in Leland's office told another story entirely.

He tried to imagine how it would have gone if she'd been there that night with the ferries, sobriety allowing him to fantasize about all _kinds _of colorful possibilities.

Humming thoughtfully, he lit a fresh cigarette and considered popping one of the muscle relaxers stashed in his cot, just a little something to help ease him out of the crushing boredom.

But then a loud hum ran through the ceiling. The Joker followed the hum with his eyes, making an intrigued sound in the back of his throat when the lights suddenly snapped out and he was submerged in darkness.

"Uh _oh,"_ he chuckled, a shiver of anticipation racing up his spine.

A red light came on out in the hallway, and a second later there was an air raid siren wailing, indicating there was some kind of _break out_ in process. The Joker jumped off his cot and wandered over to the window of his cell, peering out like all the other inmates, wondering what was happening. How _exciting._

Then there was rapid gunfire - assault rifles by the sounds of it. The guards carried pistols and syringes, so that meant people were coming _in, _not breaking _out._

Ooh, it just kept getting _better_.

The Joker smoked the rest of his cigarette fast, listening to the guns getting louder and louder until they were just down the hall. He didn't dare to believe they were there for him until five men all in black with their faces covered were right in front of his door. His eyes widened as they gestured for him to move, then two of them lifted a battering ram and began to break down his door. He stood to the side, frowning and tonguing the scar tissue inside his cheek, thinking through the options this unexpected twist presented for him. Could it be a trap? A trick? A good samaritan? A _bad_ samaritan?

Then the door blasted in, and the Joker swayed to the side to avoid it as it crashed to the floor. Three of the masked men rushed him, two of them grabbing his arms while a third threw a hood over his head and they handcuffed him, then rushed him out into the hall. The Joker went along with it, not wanting to waste a very unexpected but welcome opportunity for escape. They turned left and then right and then down, down, down a bunch of stairs, crashing through another door - gunfire from a couple of pistols, quickly silenced by the assault rifles - then running, running, running down a long hall - stop for some more shooting - and then out into the cold night air.

It was freezing outside, the crappy canvas material of the Arkham-issued jumpsuit doing nothing to fight off the bitter December wind. The frozen gravel bit into the soles of the Joker's bare feet as he was rushed across the parking lot, but that was all just _fine_ with him. He was more concerned with _who_ had orchestrated this breakout and _why._

Then he was being shoved into the back of a van - a utility van if its grinding transmission was any indication - and forced to sit on something hard and creaky - a utility box probably. The van took off with a squeal as police sirens started to scream in the distance. The Joker remained quiet as the driver employed some evasive maneuvers, ticking through a list of names who could be responsible for this fortuitous opportunity for freedom.

There was Mario and Alberto Falcone, who the Joker guessed were _probably_ going to attempt to take over the mob since he'd _pretty_ _much_ killed everyone above their paygrade. Those two idiots were just dumb enough to break him out to employ him despite the fact that that same strategy got their predecessors killed. Then there was Henry Aquista, an ambitious money launderer with a taste for revenge. He was a _mean_ one, and he'd managed to both escape the carnage and lose a whole fuckton of money thanks to the Joker. He could _easily_ envision Aquista breaking him out for the sake of killing him. That was a pretty strong possibility. Don't even get started with the non-mob types, the businessmen with shady dealings - there were too many of them to list, but they all fell on one side or the other: employment or revenge.

No one was going to break the Joker out for any _benevolent_ reason, although Donald had said he'd inspired some fans out there.

The van evened out as they pulled onto the highway, and the Joker cleared his throat tentatively.

"So uh..." he drawled, raising an eyebrow even though they couldn't see it under the hood. "You boys wanna tell me where we're goin'?"

There was nothing but silence, so the Joker sighed dramatically and rotated his wrists in the handcuffs as he turned his attention to the men around him. They were obviously professionals, efficient, and well organized. These weren't mob lackeys but real mercenaries. That meant a lot of money had gone into this. That lead the Joker to believe this was probably about _revenge_ instead of employment. _Hmm..._

He poked and prodded at their professional seams, trying to get one of them to engage him, but they remained stoically silent, and soon enough the Joker was bored again, slumping back against the wall as he waited for the van to stop. With a pair of handcuffs and all these rifles in the vicinity, it would be easy to kill them all, but killing his captors in a moving vehicle wasn't the _best_ idea, which meant waiting until the time was right.

People thought being a hitman for hire, or a terrorist was twenty-four-seven action, but in reality, there was a lot of _waiting_ involved.

Sooooo much waiting...

After about twenty minutes or so - within the city limits still, _interesting_ \- the van pulled off the freeway and slowed down. Not long after that, they were rolling through gravel. Rolling, rolling, rolling right along, and the Joker braced himself, sensing this was all going to come to completion soon. The waiting would be over, and he'd need to kill some people, regardless of what they wanted from him, but then he'd be free.

Then the gravel turned into something hollow-sounding, and they slowed right down and came to a stop.

The engine creaked noisily as the driver turned the van off and then finally, the professionals took off the hood.

The Joker squinted around at them, flexing his fingers, judging who to attack first. But then one of them lifted a duffle bag and shoved it into his arms while a second one held up a key and gestured for the Joker to give him his hands. He raised them tentatively, his eyes narrowing as the cuffs came off and the men stepped back again.

"Uh... _huh_," he said, shooting them all curious looks as he unzipped the bag. Inside was a tee-white shirt, blue jeans, socks, and a pair of Doc Martens.

The Joker blinked down at the contents of the bag, bewildered before he looked back up at the men.

"Get dressed," one of them suggested gruffly.

Was he being _dressed_ before he was murdered? Maybe this _did_ mean employment.

A change of clothes was the first thing on the list of shit to do once he shook these guys off anyway, so the Joker unzipped the jumpsuit and shrugged his arms out of it, then pulled on the tee-shirt while the men watched him closely. He stood to kick off the rest of the horrible orange canvas and awkwardly stepped into the jeans before sitting again to pull on the Docs. He rose to his feet once they were tied good and tight, and

one of the professionals shoved a heavy coat at him while another opened the van's doors. Then they all stood back, waiting.

The Joker threaded his arms through the coat's sleeves, prodding his bottom lip with his tongue as he considered killing them, and ultimately deciding there was probably something more exciting waiting for him outside. He shrugged helplessly and turned to jump out of the van, bracing himself for an attack.

They'd taken him to an old pier stretching out onto the bay, the rising sun casting a hazy violet light over everything. There was a rusted out crane overhead, a few old shipping containers stacked up beneath it, and a black Mercedes idling with its headlights on.

The Joker took note of all these things, but they all faded to nothingness compared to the figure standing at the end of the pier, less than ten yards away.

Harley turned to look at him over her shoulder, offering him one of her soft smiles, and Jack damn near collapsed where he stood.

He felt rooted to the spot as he stared at her, slowly understanding that she had been the one to put this together. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth as he stared at her, words altogether abandoning him in his surprise. It took a lot to surprise Jack, and it took even more to leave him speechless, but if anyone was capable of doing those things to him, it was Harley.

Then she turned away to look out at the bay again, and Jack found himself staggering forward until he was at her side, needing to see her face again.

She looked up at him and smiled again, sweet as anything. "Hi, Jack," she said.

He licked his lips twice, still struggling to find words as he stared down at her, trying to understand.

"You did this?" He asked her quietly.

"You'd be surprised what three million dollars and a little creativity can get you," she explained slyly.

Jack laughed quietly, shaking his head. Then something occurred to him, something he should have realized long before.

"That shrink who got me sent to Arkham," he narrowed his eyes at her. "That was you?"

"Jess is an old friend," Harley said, looking up at him from under her eyelashes, almost a little _shy_. "I knew it would be easier to get you out of Arkham than Blackgate. And I knew I had to get Gordon and the DA to trust me so they'd keep me in the loop on what was happening."

Jack could only stare at her, feeling... in _awe_ of her. His Harley.

"Baby..." he said, drawing her eyes back up to his. But he couldn't think of anything else to say. What did you say to something like this? So instead he stepped closer to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her into his chest. She slid her arms around his waist beneath his coat and pressed her face against his neck while he buried his nose in her hair, squeezing her close.

That little alien was burrowing through his chest again, making him feel shaky and _alive _and absorbed in Harley. He let out a sigh, feeling like he was releasing a breath he'd been holding for years.

Harley pulled back to look at him, still smiling as the van with the professionals drove off, leaving them alone with the Mercedes.

"So uh... what happens next?" He asked her, because she seemed to be running the show and he was still a little too shell-shocked to think straight.

"Well," she said, rolling her eyes out to the side, playing coy. "I know this really great guy. He's smart and handsome and _really_ funny..."

Jack chuckled throatily, his face splitting into a delirious grin that he didn't bother to fight.

"He told me once that Gotham needs someone _real_ to run the city," she continued, reaching up to run her palm over his jaw. "I think he might be the right man for the job."

"Oh, baby," Jack very nearly purred, lifting his hands to cup her face, and she closed her eyes as she leaned into his touch. "What would I do without you, huh?" He asked, really meaning it.

"Get caught by the Batman and end up in prison," she replied drily, her eyes snapping open as her mouth quirked up on one side.

Jack kissed her then, unable to stop himself. Her fingers curled into the lapels of his coat, trying to pull closer to him, and Jack felt like he was going to crack in half because she was so damn _good._ He felt like he was twenty-one again. Young and stupid and head over heels for a pretty blonde who was too good for him and laughed at all his jokes. His Harley. His good girl. His nice girl. His smart girl who sewed his face shut and broke him out of prison and saved his life again and again. He kept kissing her until she pulled back to look up at him again, her blue eyes dancing as she sighed happily.

"I'll always take care of you, Jack," she promised him.

* * *

**A/N: AND THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER.**


End file.
